-The Hindu Courts must let government work out a balanced regulatory regime for online content The submissions in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Tamil Nadu government in support of linking social media profiles of registered users with their Aadhaar numbers are not well-founded in the law as it now stands. It is noteworthy that a Division Bench of the Madras High Court, which is hearing two writ petitions on this...

-The Hindu Local firms will be at a disadvantage if big tech companies are given plum roles Since early last year, WhatsApp has busily piloted its payment system in India. WhatsApp Pay relies on the Indian government’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system to facilitate inter-bank transactions. Regulatory approval that would allow its nation-wide introduction is stuck on one point: the Indian government has asked WhatsApp to localise all data processing related to...

-The Indian Express Should data be allowed to flow freely or localised at source? As IT Ministry prepares to present data protection Bill in Parliament and countries argue at global forums, a look at both sides of the debate. The IT Ministry’s Bill on data protection is scheduled to be introduced in Parliament during the current session. Worldwide, the data flow debate is playing out at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)...

-The Hindu ‘It’s not just trolling, it’s an abuse of human rights’ New Delhi: Launching a crowd-sourced study on the abuse that Indian women politicians face on Twitter, Amnesty India says online trolling aimed at threatening and silencing them must be considered a human rights violation. “It’s so easy for men to dismiss it as just ‘trolling’, but we are talking about rape threats, death threats, stalking…words which can lead to deep physical...

-The Hindu The Election Commission’s coordination with social media groups for taking action against fake news and contents violating poll rules has so far resulted in the removal of 628 online posts. Since the Model Code of Conduct came into force, 574 Facebook posts have been taken off for various reasons. In all, 468 political posts were detected during the silence period as provided under the Representation of the People Act...