After the end of the deadline of new social media related guidelines in India, there is a danger of getting banned on big platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram. In February, the Government of India released a new social media-related guideline, giving companies three months’ time to implement it. The last date for implementing the new deadline was 25 May. If the Indian government bans companies that do not implement the guidelines, then the decision of the government may affect crores of users.
At the time of the announcement of the new guidelines in February, the central government had given information about the users on big platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had informed that WhatsApp is the largest social media platform in India with around 54 crore users.
There are only 15 million users on Twitter
In the case of users, YouTube is the second in India and Facebook is on the third case. The number of users running YouTube in India is around 45 crores. There are 41 crore users in the country who use Facebook.
In the last few years, Instagram has become very popular in India. Instagram has around 21 crore users in India and is the fourth largest social media platform in the country.
Twitter, however, is far behind WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram in terms of users. According to the information provided by the central government in February, Twitter has only 1.5 crore users in India.
What does the new guideline say?
The central government issued a new guideline, ordering social media platforms to appoint a nodal officer, resident grievance officer in India. This officer will have to settle the complaints received against the OTT content within 15 days.
Not only this, under the new guidelines, social media platforms will have to issue a monthly report. In this report, companies will have to give information about complaints and their disposal. Social media platforms will also have to give information about what was the reason for the removal of which content.
Koo App implemented guideline
The Koo App, created to challenge Twitter in India, has implemented the government’s new guideline. Facebook has said that it is working closely with the government on the new guideline. Twitter, however, has asked for another 6 months to implement the guideline.