Tweets – Defamatory – Due diligence by Social-media intermediary
Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, requires even a social media intermediary such as Twitter to perform due-diligence with regard to contents carried on their platform failing which they lose the “safe harbour protection” available to them under the law.
It is imperative on the part of every person who authors or puts-out content in public domain via such intermediary to conduct requisite due-diligence, which the defendant no.1 has admittedly failed to do.
Publication of defamatory tweets – Right to Privacy is implicit in the right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. A citizen has a right to safeguard the privacy of his own, his family. None can publish anything concerning the above matters without consent – whether truthful or otherwise and whether laudatory or critical.
Information or message sent by a normal citizen and the same information / message sent by a person with a stature having followers has a lot of difference. Such a person, therefore, carries a lot of responsibility in what he says and does considering the impact it will have on the society or a particular group of persons, as the case may be. The more a person is popular in the society, he also carries more responsibility in what he conveys to the society.
A message that is sent or forwarded in the social – media is like an arrow, which has already been shot from the bow. Till that message remains with the sender, it is within his control. Once it is sent, it like the arrow, which has already been shot and the sender of the message must take the ownership for the consequences of the damage done by that arrow (message).
Regrettably, messages on social-media generate a social-media chain reaction as it were, which is no less dangerous in today’s milieu than a nuclear reaction gone out of control.
The effect of the publication including the propensity of the statement to “percolate through underground channels and contaminate hidden springs and including the loss of social standing, psychological distress and future treatment by others including “the insult offered or the pain of a false accusation”.
Judgment dated 1.7.2024 of the Delhi High Court in CS (OS) No.300/2021 of Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri Vs. Saket Gokhale and another
