Welcome to The Esya Dispatch, a weekly snapshot of the policy debates shaping India’s digital economy. Each edition brings together key developments in technology policy, from platform governance and AI regulation to data protection and competition —along with the Esya Centre’s perspective on what they mean for innovation, businesses, and users.
Here’s a quick recap of two key tech policy developments from the past week:
Centre looks to empower more ministries to block social media content
The Centre may expand the scope of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 to allow bodies like the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs, and the Ministry of Defence to issue blocking orders to social media platforms. Currently, only the Ministry of Electronics and IT can block online content under this provision. Senior government officials said that the move is necessary to combat AI-generated misinformation online. Notably, the Centre may extend blocking powers to other ministries by issuing a gazette notification, instead of amending the IT Act or its associated rules.
Esya’s take: This move ostensibly aims to speed up the removal of AI-generated misinformation by extending blocking powers to multiple ministries, but may not be constitutional. In the past, a provision in the IT Rules had similarly proposed taking down content flagged as misinformation by a govt-appointed fact-check unit. However, the Bombay High Court struck down this provision for violating the right to free speech. It noted that the government cannot be the arbiter of truth and the right to free speech does not encompass the right to the truth – because if this was the case, all fiction would be illegal.
Recent amendments to the IT Rules have also reduced content takedown timelines to 2-3 hours in some instances. Since this move could also lead to a surge of requests from multiple ministries, platforms may struggle to process them efficiently, creating confusion.
CCI Chairperson: Ready to act against anti-competitive conduct in AI value chain
The Chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), Ravneet Kaur recently said that the regulator is ready to act against anti-competitive conduct in the AI value chain. She flagged concerns regarding algorithmic collusion, targeted price discrimination, self-preferencing and opaqueness in AI systems, noting that these could lead to concentration in AI markets. She added that the regulator has issued a guidance note advising businesses on how to conduct a self-audit of AI systems, to prevent any anti-competitive outcomes from the development and deployment of AI applications.
Esya’s take: A few months ago, the CCI released its market study on AI and competition, which identified algorithmic collusion, targeted pricing and reduced transparency as key competitive concerns. However, such conduct is not new or unique to AI markets – for example, price discrimination is a common practice in sectors like transportation and hospitality. Additionally, since research on issues like AI-driven algorithmic collusion is still at a nascent stage, it is premature to predict the likelihood of its occurrence. Our survey of 50 Indian companies also found that 54 percent of respondents regularly multi-home across both open-source and proprietary AI models, which shows that the Indian market is not concentrated around a handful of frontier models. Thus, the CCI’s concerns appear overstated and rest on uncertain presumptions.