<span style="color: #222222;">The Lok Sabha has passed the Major Port Authorities Bill, 2020 after discussion. The Bill seeks to provide for regulation, operation and planning of major ports in the country and provide greater autonomy to these ports.  <br />'' <br />'' It seeks to replace the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963. The legislation provides for the creation of a Board of Major Port Authority for each major port.  These Boards will replace the existing Port Trusts.<br />'' <br />'' Union Shipping Minister Mansukhlal Mandaviya while initiating the discussion said that bill would make the major ports in the country more autonomous and provide major thrust in the maritime sector.<br />'' <br />'' A BJP member in the Lok Sabha today raised the issue of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook allegedly arbitrarily censuring the content posted by users, especially those with, what he called a nationalistic approach and sought protection of such content.<br />'' <br />'' Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Tejasvi Surya of the BJP said for a long time, there have been many credible allegations made against the Twitter, Facebook and their affiliates of arbitrary and unilateral regulation and ensuring of content posted by third party users.<br />'' <br />'' He said this posed a significant Constitutional challenge not only on the grounds of unreasonable restrict of free speech but also amounts to illegal interference during elections.<br />'' <br />'' The MP said Facebook, Twitter and similar platforms claim themselves to be intermediaries within the meaning of the term under the IT Act, 2000. He said the key element of this definition is that the role of the said intermediaries is limited to processing, storing and transmitting data of third party users and does not include intervention on content of the users and therefore, Section 79 of the Act provides these intermediaries exemption from liability.<br />'' <br />'' An intermediary receives protection that a regular publisher does not receive, he said. Mr.Surya said while this is the explicit spirit of the statute, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, while laying down what sort of third party content must be prohibited by the privacy policy and terms and conditions of the intermediary, goes far beyond the remit of Article 19(2) of the Constitution read with Section 79 and 69 of the IT Act.<br />'' <br />'' It essentially empowers private party intermediaries to remove on the basis of user complaints or suo moto any content deemed to be in violation of its guidelines, he said.<br />'' <br />'' He said these guidelines are not only ultra vires the parent statute but also is unconstitutional as the grounds it provides are so wide that it will fail the standards of constitutionality set out by Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal case while striking down Sec 66 A of the IT Act.<br />'' <br />'' They are problematic because they empower private enterprises performing essentially a public function to act as censors as free speech without govt oversight, thus effectively and severely impacting safeguards of fundamental right to free speech, he said.<br />'' <br />'' He urged the government to repeal such unconstitutional guidelines and issue new ones to govern social media platforms, thereby protecting the fundamental right to free speech of our citizens and protect our democracy from foreign interference, he said.<br />'' <br />'' The Joint Parliament Committee examining the Personal Data Protection Bill was on Wednesday given an extension to submit its report during winter session of Parliament. P P Chaudhary of the BJP moved a motion seeking extension up to the winter session of the parliament for the panel to submit its report.<br />'' <br />'' He said  the House should be extended "That this House do extend up to the second week of the Winter Session of the Parliament, 2020 the time for the presentation of the Report of the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019," according to an official statement presented in the Lok Sabha.<br />'' <br />'' The motion was passed by a voice vote. The panel has 20 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. The Personal Data Protection Bill seeks to regulate the use of individual's data by the government and private companies.<br />'' <br />'' The JPC was constituted by the Lok Sabha in December last year, and was expected to submit its report in the Budget session.<br />'' <br />''<br />''After one extension, the committee was asked to submit its report by the second week of the monsoon session of Parliament.</span><br />