Image: Axios
Faizel Patel – 01/06/2021
Tech policy and media professional Prasanto K Roy says the Indian government and social media company WhatsApp have made numerous attempts to resolve a conflict about sharing first originator messages shared on the platform.
This comes after WhatsApp has launched legal action against the Indian government over new internet regulations requiring the messaging app to break its privacy guarantees.
The regulations, which took effect the same day comes at a time of growing tensions between social media giants and the Indian government, which has demanded tech companies remove content critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
WhatsApp filed a case in the Delhi High Court.
Speaking to Radio Islam, Roy says there has been many attempts to reach a settlement in the dispute.
“So WhatsApp did a whole lot of things, in fact that was global, but it was triggered off by India. For example slowing down the propagation of forwards, only five forwards to a message, messages forwarded many times cannot be forwarded to more than one person. So there’s a whole bunch of things that WhatsApp actually did and took to the government.”
Roy says the Indian Government rejected WhatsApp’s proposal.
“Essentially the government and ministry of IT is saying this is not enough, it’s too little, we need to know who is the first originator.”
Roy says while WhatsApp is on the defensive, the courts are not too keen on big tech companies suing governments.
Listen to the interview with Prasanto K Roy
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