The recent proposed amendments to IT rules inviting public comments has been explained by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as just procedural but this is not the case. Activists say that if passed, the new rules will further tighten censorship of online content.Rules were already there and takedown orders were being issued in large numbers, but now it will further expand to censor not just publications but also comments by citizens, said Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor of Medianama and also activist on tech policy.Of the many changes proposed, “There is an expansion of the powers of the ministry, that it can issue advisories and circulars and all sorts of notifications, and those are basically going to be binding obligations on online platforms,” Pahwa said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.And the takedown has to happen within three hours. Which means that rather than pushback, the platform will take down the post. “During 2021, around the CEA, NRC protests, Twitter was challenging the government a lot. Twitter was able to push back at that point in time because they had the opportunity to push back because they weren’t liable for shutting it down immediately,” he said. Now everything is an emergency order, so it has to come down within three hours.“Many of them are harangued by the ministry for compliance. And over a period of time, they have sort of almost resigned themselves to the fact that this is what will happen in India,” he said. “All of this is operating without any transparency and accountability.”Pahwa said an infrastructure is being created and every new set of rules is adding another layer to that infrastructure. “Tomorrow there might be something else.”