Government Aims to Keep Internet Free from Obscene and Illegal

Minister Dr. L. Murugan
FOCUS_KEYWORD: Internet Safety in India
CATEGORY: National News
CONTENT: New Delhi, August 5: The government is committed to providing a safe, reliable, accountable, and open digital environment for women, children, and all internet users. It aims to keep India’s internet ecosystem free from illegal, obscene, and objectionable content.

This information was shared by Dr. L. Murugan, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, in a written response to a question posed by Prabhakar Reddy Vemireddy in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

Dr. Murugan explained that the Information Technology Act of 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules of 2021 provide a comprehensive legal framework to address illegal and harmful content in the digital space. These regulations outline clear responsibilities for social media platforms and other intermediaries.

According to the IT Rules of 2021, no intermediary is allowed to host, publish, transmit, or share content that is obscene, pornographic, related to child sexual exploitation, harmful to children, violates privacy, or breaches any laws. Non-compliance can lead to the loss of legal immunity under Section 79 of the IT Act and may result in action against the platform.

The minister noted that on February 10, 2026, the government amended the IT rules to strengthen regulatory measures against the harms caused by artificially generated information, deepfakes, and AI-generated content. Under the revised rules, social media platforms and other intermediaries must adopt appropriate technical measures to prevent the dissemination of obscene, misleading, impersonating, or harmful AI-generated content for children.

In such cases, platforms must report relevant crimes to competent authorities under laws such as the Indian Citizen Safety Code, 2023, and the POCSO Act, 2012.

Dr. Murugan highlighted that citizens can report all types of cyber crimes through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, initiated under the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre. The portal also allows for anonymous reporting of cyber crimes against women and children under the ‘Report Women/Child Related Crimes’ module.

Additionally, a module called ‘Report and Check Suspect’ has been launched, enabling citizens to report suspicious website URLs, WhatsApp numbers, Telegram handles, mobile numbers, email IDs, SMS headers, social media URLs, and deepfake content.

The minister stated that the government has provided financial assistance of ₹132.93 crores under the ‘Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children’ scheme to build capacity in states and union territories. This funding supports the establishment of cyber forensic training laboratories, the appointment of cyber consultants, and training for police personnel, prosecutors, and judicial officers.

Cyber forensic training laboratories have been set up in 33 states and union territories. Over 24,600 personnel from law enforcement agencies, judicial officers, and public prosecutors have received training related to cyber crime awareness, investigation, and forensics.

Dr. Murugan mentioned that the I4C initiative has also trained over 200,000 students associated with NCC, NSS, and Nehru Yuva Kendra organizations across the country in cyber hygiene.

To raise awareness of cyber security among students and women, handbooks for adolescents/learners and for women’s safety in cyber security have also been released.

Furthermore, the government is working to develop human resources in the field of information security and increase awareness of cyber hygiene and cyber security among the general public through the ‘Information Security Education and Awareness’ project.