The Centre has warned online platforms, primarily social media firms, of legal consequences should they fail to take action against obscene, vulgar, pornographic, paedophilic, and other forms of unlawful content. In an advisory dated December 29, 2025, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) directed social media firms to immediately review their compliance frameworks. The Ministry emphasised that platforms must act against unlawful content or face prosecution under the law of the land.
"Intermediaries, including social media intermediaries, are reminded that they are statutorily obligated under Section 79 of the IT Act... to observe, due diligence as a condition for availing exemption from liability in respect of third-party information uploaded, published, hosted, shared or transmitted on or through their platforms," the advisory stated.
Reasons for the directive
This advisory follows observations by MeitY that social media platforms have not been strictly regulating inappropriate or illegal material. The Ministry further clarified the risks of continued negligence:
"It is reiterated that non-compliance with the provisions of the IT Act and/or the IT Rules, 2021 may result in consequences, including prosecution under the IT Act, BNS, and other applicable criminal laws, against the intermediaries, platforms and their users," the advisory said.
Statutory obligations
The Ministry reminded firms that the IT Act and the IT Rules, 2021, mandate that online platforms make reasonable efforts to ensure users do not host, display, or share information that is harmful to children, obscene, or otherwise unlawful.
MeitY noted a pressing need for greater consistency and rigour regarding "due diligence obligations." This specifically concerns the identification, reporting, and expeditious removal of indecent or paedophilic content as prescribed under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Enforcing timelines
The IT Ministry has instructed intermediaries to act swiftly to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon gaining "actual knowledge", whether through court orders or notification from a government agency, strictly within the timelines set by the 2021 Rules.
"The intermediaries shall not permit the hosting, displaying, uploading, publication, transmission, storage, sharing of any content that is obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, paedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under any law for the time being in force in any manner whatsoever," the advisory added.
Under the IT Rules 2021, platforms are required to remove content depicting an individual in a sexual act or impersonation within 24 hours of receiving a complaint from the affected individual or their representative.
Next steps for platforms
The advisory concludes by calling for an immediate internal review of:
- Compliance frameworks
- Content moderation practices
- User enforcement mechanisms
Platforms must ensure strict and continuous adherence to the IT Act to maintain their intermediary status.
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