Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha for a conviction in a criminal defamation case is another blow against Indian democracy. One does not even need to be fond of him as a person or support his politics to understand it. Here a colonial law has been twisted & used as a weapon to target an opposition member and bar their participation in parliament. Defences such as enforcing the rule of law or awaiting the outcome of an appellate process are farcical. This is plainly obvious vendetta politics.

Six tweets on the budget and the national economic survey. Let me start with the Economic Survey. There are four parts of interest. The first is tele-connectivity that uses 2014 data to showcase growth while fairly acknowledge a digital divide. However, it fails to comment on 1/6 ...recent trends evident from data over the past two years of slowing growth, even regression in more recent data. The second area is how platforms, particularly CoWin is uncritically presented as a, "digital public good". This means that it works for every Indian. However.. 2/6

Ting, tong.

Amendments to IT Rules have been notified establishing a GAC (Grievance Appellate Committee) that is staffed with government appointees. This means the government now has control over content moderation decisions by social media companies.

egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/… Why this is bad? Read on.... internetfreedom.in/indian-code-of…

The object of a defamation case is to repair the reputation of a person in the eyes of the public. Hence, the principal remedies for restitution are an injunction to prevent circulation, distribution and some monetary relief (for actual pecuniary loss). 1/n In an instance when a publication has been debunked publicly, withdrawn & retracted, there is little that remains to be achieved through a legal proceeding. May be an apology/contrition to the impacted parties? But then there also has to be an actual harm to reputation. 2/n

Yesterday @internetfreedom revealed the Aarogya Setu Privacy Protocol was discontinued highetening concern that personal data may be stored in perpetuity. Based RTI work in which IFF files close to 400 applications a year and take them to the CIC putting in years of work. 1/4 Each day, IFF's staff works hard in a small team of 12 people on policy engagement, strategic litigation, parliamentary outreach and civic engagement. This is tough work but has significant social impact to ensure that digitisation in India is rights centric. 2/4

India made a proposal at a UN forum for 66A. “ET has reviewed a copy of the speech document which was presented by the Indian delegation. All three clauses suggested by India are the same as those in Section 66A of the IT Act, which was struck down” 1/6
economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-byte… Section 66A was completely struck down by the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional. “Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is struck down in its entirety being violative of Article 19(1)(a) and not saved under Article 19(2).” 2/6
indiankanoon.org/doc/110813550/

MEITY today released a proposal to amend the IT Rules & sought public feedback. Ostensibly for "additional avenues for grievance redressal" & "new accountability standards" on "big-tech platforms". This is incorrect, instead it increases government control. 1/10 What are the IT Rules? They *should* be legal conditions followed by online platforms (“intermediaries”) to maintain immunity for user generated content. However last year they mutated to a comprehensive internet censorship code. 2/10 internetfreedom.in/intermediaries…

The legal case of Whatsapp challenge IT Rules, but important to remember the IT Rules:

1/ Go beyond Whatsapp. Apply to intermediaries esp. those ≥ 5 million users.

2/ Bring TV style censorship to streaming platforms.

3/ Throttle online news media.

internetfreedom.in/intermediaries… It is may be a silicon valley company v. government case. But there are six other challenges to the IT Rules. Here is a sheet we made by @internetfreedom listing them. We will update them today. Also please let me know if corrections need to be made. docs.google.com/document/d/1km…

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https://twitter.com/internetfreedom/status/1397472299092103170

So you can also set up a recurring donation & become a IFF Member. This works really well for our community model. We make every effort to make sure we value and listen to members. For eg. quarterly calls where we disclose our social impact & listen! internetfreedom.in/donate/

An action to serve a notice can be done through email and post or with multiple police personnel. When it is the latter will create a sense of threat that goes beyond ordinary legal compliance (which itself is doubtful). It is signalling & not to be trivialised. Second, on the timing. the larger operational environment as we have been repeatedly urging is becoming restrictive. Significant parts of IT Rules come into operation tomorrow EOD. This will increase further government control on online speech. internetfreedom.in/pound-the-alar…

In some convenient timing the Facebook oversight board has released a decision relating to the BJP ordering it to restore a post. Let us look at it in context. Link to the decision below. 1/n oversightboard.com/decision/FB-H6… Yesterday on April 28 two significant events occurred with respect to Facebook and India. First, it announced it’s 2021 first quarter results. Their note by the CFO is almost gushing on the numbers. (Source: Facebook, April 28) 2/n

Thread. For the age group of 18-45, as per @AyushmanNHA, “for all 18+ citizens, vaccinations will not be done on a walk-in basis. Individuals will be required to register beforehand on the #CoWIN portal to ensure physical distancing”. This will cause exclusion. Why? 1/n Recent experience: Out of 14,42,10,652 Vaccinations registrations, through CoWin are 2,52,96,511, walk-in 9,33,47,824 or Health Care or Front Line Workers 2,55,66,317. Source: CoWin Dashboard (April 28). 2/n
dashboard.cowin.gov.in

"It has been said that mark of a civilisation can be seen how it treats its prisoners; it might also be seen in how it treats personal privacy" "Michael Foucault contended that the nature of the oneway surveillance in the Panopticon – what he referred to as the gaze – resulted in an asymmetry of knowledge, and hence power.."