Technology had remained largely unregulated in countries for a larger part of the last decade as governments were shy of regulating companies even though there was considerable user harm emanating from the policy decisions of these firms, the minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.

Speaking at the Times Network Indian Economic Conclave, Chandrasekhar said innovation could not be the excuse for companies to keep ignoring user harm that arose from their actions and policies.

“Now, people have woken up that these platforms can also cause harm. Therefore, we have tried to correct the asymmetry. Everything we have done has been in a consultative manner. The government has persuaded all the platforms that it is in our interest to ensure internet in India is safe and trusted,” Chandrasekhar said.

Apart from making child sexual abuse material, pornography, and religiously inciting content a “no-go area” for intermediaries, the government also believes that misinformation is a dangerous phenomenon, he said.

The government will remain the custodian for the rights of Indian citizens under Article 14, 19, and 21, which give individuals the right to be free from discrimination, the right to have free speech and the right to privacy, Chandrasekhar said.

“We will ensure those rights are never violated. But those who try to conflate the right to free speech as being the right to misinformation are mistaken. There is nothing in the right to free speech that gives you the right to tell lies or pass or misinformation as truth,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh said that artificial intelligence or AI should stand for “augmented intelligence” in a way that it supports and increases human creativity and productivity. Human beings would have to take control of who remains in the driver’s seat for AI’s progress, she said, adding that once there was control over the direction of growth of the technology, it could be developed as a tool. The managing director and chief executive officer of Tech Mahindra C P Gurnani said that AI would expand the marketplace in every sense of the word.

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