AI Summit: Big Tech can act in minutes, not hours, on harmful AI content, says IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

Pushing back against criticism from technology companies about the feasibility of India’s new three-hour takedown requirement, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on February 18 said that global platforms already have the technological capability to respond far faster to harmful and unlawful content.

“Big Tech have enough tools and tech prowess to implement a three-hour takedown notice,” he told Moneycontrol in an interview, adding that “actually three hours is a long period, it should be five minutes,” given the speed at which misleading and harmful AI-generated content can go viral.

His comments directly counter concerns raised earlier by Rob Sherman, vice president and deputy chief privacy officer at Meta, who said the compressed timeline would be difficult to operationalise.

Sherman had argued that making legality determinations within three hours is challenging in practice and that “it’s not really about whether companies want to comply. It’s about whether you can actually make a determination in that amount of time.”

The three-hour rule was introduced under the newly notified amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, replacing the earlier 36-hour window for removing unlawful content on the basis of court orders or directions from authorised government officers.

The change has triggered concern among global platforms and industry bodies, who argue that the absence of risk-based gradation and the compressed timelines could lead to over-removal of content and operational strain at scale.