Thread by @internetfreedom

Our staffers @Devdutta96 and @DebSidharth have published Part 3 of a special series on @LiveLawIndia commemorating five years since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Shreya Singhal v Union of India.
1/12

https://twitter.com/LiveLawIndia/status/1245215153995431936

In Part 3, we evaluate the relevance of the Judgement in the context of intermediary liability and self-censorship. We highlight the risks of chilling effect and the manner in which the Court reads down India’s safe harbour liability exemption regime for intermediaries.
2/12

We benchmark the Supreme Court’s decision against best practices like the Manilla Principles. Citing @FLarue_libex and @davidakaye we hold that the Supreme Court may have done well to strike down the ability of the Government to issue takedown orders
3/12

manilaprinciples.org

However, for future regulation it was important we highlighted the issue of delegated censorship by private platforms, a position taken by Justice Nariman, which is still revered by experts even today. We refer to this piece by @daphnehk
4/12

indianexpress.com/article/opinio…

We juxtapose the court’s findings with India’s draft intermediary amendments which walks back on the Shreya Singhal’s views on self censorship with requirements of deployment of automated content monitoring and filtering tools.
5/12

meity.gov.in/writereaddata/…

We highlight how this is problematic from a human rights perspective and refer to the dissenting opinion in the Grand Chamber of the ECHR where the judges cite @jackbalkin and the free speech risks associated with collateral censorship or private party censorship
6/12

Automated filtering tools are prone to over censorship as they fail to account for context in speech.
7/12

Recent experiences with work from home transition for social networks exemplify this since they’ve had to rely more exclusively on AI-based tools for content moderation.
8/12

vox.com/recode/2020/3/…

It is therefore important to use principles derived from landmark judgements like the Shreya Singhal case which can hold future legislative and regulatory efforts accountable.
9/12

This 3 Part series makes us appreciate that while there is much to be thankful for from the Shreya Singhal judgement, there remains a lot more work to ensure the internet remains a free, open and safe space for internet users
10/12

In Part 1, we examined the relevance of the Judgement striking down Sec 66A instead of merely reading it down. However five years later we find that despite Sec 66A being struck down, this legal zombie continues to haunt our criminal justice system.
11/12

livelaw.in/columns/5-year…

In Part 2, we analysed the Shreya Singhal Judgement’s blindspot regarding website blocking under Section 69A and highlighted how it has allowed a system of secret censorship by executive fiat to continue.
12/12

livelaw.in/columns/shreya…