Safe Harbour Protection

• Vaid's ICS, Lucknow
• 28, Aug 2021

Why in News:

According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology(MeitY), Twitter has failed to comply with the Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021.

This means the “Safe Harbour” Protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act is withdrawn for Twitter.

What is “Safe Harbour” Protection under Section 79  of IT Act?

• Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act provides for the Safe Harbour protection to social media giants.
• It says that anyintermediary shall not be held legally or otherwise liable for any third-party information, data, or communication link made available on its platform.
• However,the intermediary should not involve any way in initiating the transmission of the message in question, select the receiver of the transmitted message, and do not modify any information of the transmission.
• This means that as longas a platform acts just as the messenger carrying a message from point A to point B, it will be safe from any legal prosecution due to the transmission of a message. However, it should be without any interference with its content in any manner,

How the removal of Safe Harbour Protection impacts Twitter?

• It opens up the platform to the possibility of any type of legal action which was not possible before, as a publisher of content.
• This means that Twitter will be accountableif someone’s content on Twitter leads to some form of violence or violates any Indian law.
• Then not only the person that has put out the tweet but also Twitter will be legally liable for the content as it no longer has the protection.

Facts for Prelims:

NGC7733 and NGC7734:

A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) came upon the rare occurrence while studying a known interacting galaxy pair, NGC7733, and NGC7734.

What is a Supermassive black hole?

A black hole is formed from the death of a star with such as a gravitational field that the matter gets sucked into the small space under it, trapping the light of the dead star.

Supermassive black holes are difficult to detect as they do not emit any light, however, they can reveal their presence by interacting with their surroundings.

When the dust and gas from the surroundings fall onto a supermassive black hole, some of the mass is swallowed by the black hole, however, some of it is converted into energy and is emitted as electromagnetic radiation that makes the black hole appear luminous.

They are called the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and release a huge amount of energy and ionized particles into the galaxy and its environment.

Eco Sensitive Zones

ESZ is fragile areas around protected areas declared by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

‘Samridh’

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) launched the ‘Samridh’ (Start-up Accelerators of MeitY for pRoduct Innovation, Development and Growth: SAMRIDH) scheme on August 25, 2021.

Objective: To promote the start-up ecosystem in the country.

Important Facts: ‘Samruddha’ i.e. ‘Start-up Accelerator for Product, Innovation Development and Growth’ scheme of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ‘MeitY Start-up Hub’ is being implemented.

• ‘Samridh’ will create a conducive platform for safe investments to enhance the products of Indian software product startups and grow their business.
• Prosper program will focus on nurturing 300 start-ups over the next three years by providing customer interaction, investor interaction and international reach