The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), which represents major technology companies including Apple, Google, Meta, Reddit, Adobe, and Microsoft, has written a strongly worded letter to India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), calling for the immediate suspension of recent amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The amendments, which took effect on February 20, 2026, introduce shortened takedown timelines for unlawful content, including a three-hour window for general unlawful material and two hours for non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), and impose obligations on platforms regarding synthetically generated information (SGI), such as deepfakes.
In a report from The Tech Trace, it is said that the USISPF, in a letter dated February 19, 2026, addressed to IT Secretary S. Krishnan, requested that MeitY place the amendments “in abeyance” pending proper consultations and defer enforcement until after the upcoming India AI Impact Summit and further industry discussions. The group argued for a “realistic transition period that aligns with global best practices,” warning that the current 10-day compliance window between notification and enforcement is insufficient for necessary technical, product, and legal changes.
Criticism of operational feasibility and government systems
The USISPF highlighted the “operationally unfeasible” nature of the three-hour takedown requirement, pointing to inefficiencies in the government’s own mechanisms. The letter specifically criticised the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’s (I4C) Sahyog portal for significant latency, often taking several hours to update requests and notify platforms. This also comes along with issues like incomplete or incorrect legal orders from law enforcement and a potential surge in requests from authorised officers across states.
These factors, according to USISPF, make strict compliance timelines impractical and increase risks of system failures, over-removal of content, or unintended harm to users.
For deepfake-related provisions and SGI obligations, such as mandatory provenance marking, automated detection, and pre-publication verification for significant social media intermediaries, the forum raised concerns about privacy implications, engineering challenges, global product alignment needs, and the potential for over-censorship without adequate testing.
Calls for consultation and transition support
The USISPF also emphasised that without sufficient time, platforms cannot adequately prepare through cross-functional coordination, user education features, terms-of-service updates, reviewer training, or escalation pathway validation. The letter warned that rushed implementation could lead to inadvertent non-compliance, threaten user safety, due process, and safe-harbour protections under Section 79 of the IT Act, potentially making the intermediary ecosystem “operationally non-viable in India.”
This submission follows similar requests from Indian industry bodies like IAMAI and BIF for consultations on the amendments. However, the USISPF’s letter stands out for its direct criticism of the Sahyog portal and its forceful tone in urging suspension.