Akash Chatterjee & Moulinath Moitra, Amity Law School, Kolkata
ABSTRACT
The democracy of this country functions with dialogue and with dissent – people exercise their right to free speech as a fundamental right to voice out their grievances and at the same time give a reply to confronting questions. Without free speech, there is no democracy. Gone are the days when the halls of auditoriums and parliament were the only places to reverberate free speech. Now, the influence of technology and the compulsive social distancing in the pandemic has very rightly made social media networking sites as the major and rather main place for the exchange of speech and expression. In doing so, social media provides not only a platform where people engage but also discharges an important function having public attributes –enabling people to exercise their free speech. They may be private entities going by their own rules, but their intimate association with the people and with an important fundamental right cannot be possibly ignored.
Keywords: Intermediaries, Social media, Democracy, IT Rules, Supervision, Public Functions, Article 12
