India’s new digital rules 2026: Tighter social media oversight, critics warn of digital authoritarianism

India is set to introduce new sets of digital rules that will significantly harden government oversight over the digital ecosystem in India. The government presents this as a user safety, accountability, and data protection. But unusually tighter regulation on social media platforms, online content and individual user rise concerns about restrictions on freedom of expression and digital authoritarianism. The new draft bill for amendment to the Information Technology Rules, 2021 (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), circulated on March 30 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is inviting public comments until April 16, 2026.
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What does the amendment intend to modify?

The amendment broadens the scope of the rules from publishers to individuals like independent journalists, YouTubers, Instagram content creators, and even aware users who alert citizens. The amendment also intends to create a non-negotiable authority to the IT ministers to issue binding instruments anchored in law, like clarifications, advisories, and SOPs, which intermediaries have to follow if they don’t want to lose their ‘safe harbour’ protection under Section 79.

According to Home Ministry Data, between 2024 and 2025, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre has blocked 1,11,185 “suspicious” online content, which amounts to roughly 290 takedown notices each day. According to a report by The Hindu last year, nearly a third of 66 takedown notices sent to X by the I4C sought to remove content critical of the Union government and its ministers, specifically pertaining to PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and his son Jay Shah, as well as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Currently, only the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) can issue a takedown/blocking order to news publishers. But the proposal widens the ambit so that any state-designated authority can issue these orders under compressed takedown timelines from 24-36 hours earlier to 3 hours now. The final nail in the coffin is that any private body could register with MIB as a "self-regulatory body" and get approved without transparent guidelines and exercise takedown authority over individual content creators, even without being affiliated with any publisher. The rules state self-regulatory bodies should be "constituted by publishers or their associations," but without enforcement or clear definitions, independent private organisations could potentially slip through and gain quasi-governmental power to censor individual creators. This is essentially the privatisation of censorship without any accountability.