Section 67 IT Act and Social Media Likes

October 28, 2023

GS Paper II Governance and Social Justice

Context:

In a recent judgment, the Allahabad High Court held that merely Liking a post on social media applications like Facebook, X, etc. cannot be punishable under Section 67 of IT Act.

Section 67 of IT Act

However, the Allahabad High Court ruled that ‘Sharing or retweeting a post would amount to “transmitting” under Section 67 of IT Act’ thereby attracting penal consequences.

What is IT Act 2000?

The Information Technology Act, 2000 also Known as an IT Act.
It is based on the United Nations Model law on Electronic Commerce 1996 (UNCITRAL Model) which was suggested by the General Assembly of the United Nations by a resolution dated on 30th January, 1997.
The main objective of this act is to carry lawful and trustworthy electronic, digital and online transactions and alleviate or reduce cybercrimes.

What are the important provisions of IT Act?

Important provisions of IT Act are listed in table below;

Section	Provisions
Section 43	Any act of destroying, altering or stealing a computer system/network or deleting data with malicious intentions without authorization from the owner of the computer is liable for the payment to be made to the owner as compensation for damages.
Section 43A	Any corporate body dealing with sensitive information that fails to implement reasonable security practices causing loss of another person will also be liable as a convict for compensation to the affected party.
Section 66	Penalises Hacking of a Computer System with malicious intentions like fraud
Section 66 B, C, D	Penalises ‘Fraud or dishonesty’ using or transmitting information or identity theft
Section 66 E	Penalise ‘violation of privacy’ by transmitting image of private area
Section 66 F	This Section is on Cyber Terrorism affecting unity, integrity, security, sovereignty of India through digital medium is liable for life imprisonment.
Section 67	Penalisese publishing obscene information or pornography or transmission of obscene content in public
Section 67A and 67B	Penalises publishing or transmission of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form
Section 69 (A)	Under this section Centre has the power to “block for access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource”.
Section 79	This section states that any intermediary shall not be held legally or otherwise liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted on its platform.

Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000 was struck down as unconstitutional by the Court in 2015 in the Shreya Singhal Case.

Source: The Hindu