Disable Community Notes or get publisher tag, Parl panel moots

HT reports X Community Notes oversight with IT Rules tweaks

- Sejal Sharma

A parliamentary panel has observed that features like Community Notes, on social media platforms such as X, should be treated asa publishing activity, thus making the platform itself a publisher and not an intermediary, the head of the committee said in a social media post on Saturday.

According to Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament (MP) Nishikant Dubey, who heads the parliamentary standing committee on communications and IT, the ministry of electronics and IT (Meity) should either direct platforms to disable community notes on platforms or consider imposing a “publisher tax” — in what has been construed as obligations similar to Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, which requires platforms to compensate news publishers.

An official at Meity, who asked not to be named, said the ministry has not received a formal recommendation from the parliamentary panel. “If we receive a formal recommendation, we will examine,” this official said.

“Our committee, that is, the Parliament's Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, has unanimously told @Gol_MeitY, the Government of India, that @XCorpIndia’s job is community note publishing, not that of an intermediary, so either social media platforms should shut down their community notes, otherwise, as per Australia’s law, they will have to pay the publishers’ tax,” wrote Dubey in a post, loosely translated from Hindi.