The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had given a three-month deadline to the organizations to accept the guidelines by May 25. The Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021 was notified on February 25.

The social media platforms risk losing their status and protections as negotiators if they fail to comply with the guidelines. Several social media users were worried that Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms might be banned in India starting from May 26. However, the apps and websites are still running and neither the companies nor the government has said the platforms will be blocked. Major corporations such as Facebook, Google, Twitter have not yet complied with the guidelines.

“We aim to comply with the provisions of the IT rules and continue to discuss a few of the issues which need more engagement with the government. Under the IT Rules, we are working to apply operational processes and improve efficiencies. Facebook remains committed to people’s ability to freely and safely express themselves on our platform,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

“Requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats is equal to asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and basically sabotages people’s right to privacy. We have joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said.