Amid a row with microblogging site Twitter, which has refused to block accounts of several personalities and organisations backing the farm protests, the Centre has come up with draft rules to regulate news-related websites, social media sites and OTT platforms, NDTV reported.

According to reports, the guidelines comprise a self-regulatory framework that has a particular code of ethics and compliance reports.

A “chief compliance officer”, who will work on a 24x7 basis, will be appointed to address complaints from law enforcement agencies. The officer will also submit reports on compliance regularly, while a grievance redressal mechanism portal and an oversight mechanism will also come into play, as per NDTV sources.

The government will develop this oversight mechanism, meant to “coordinate adherence to Code of Ethics by publishers and self-regulating bodies”.

The report also states that in case of an emergency, a Secretary-rank officer will have power to take actions. Although there is no mention of a punishment in the draft, it states that sites will have to remove any content flagged by a court or such agencies within 36 hours of receiving a notice.

The new rules come into view a day after Union technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad issued a warning to social media sites about abiding by the laws. “You will have to follow the Constitution of India, you will have to abide by the laws of India,” he said, taking names of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp.

“You have millions of followers in India, you are free to do business and make money, but you will have to follow the Indian constitution,” he added.

Twitter on Wednesday cited Indian law to resist the Narendra Modi government’s directive to act against news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians over posts related to the farm protests.

Twitter made the announcements in the morning in a blog, hours before its senior management was scheduled to meet ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) officials. The ministry took umbrage to the Twitter blog post ahead of the meeting, stating that such action was unusual.

“A deep sense of disappointment at seeing Twitter side not with ‘freedom of expression’ but rather with those who seek to abuse such freedom and provoke disturbance to public order, was conveyed to the Twitter representative,” the ministry said in a late-night release.

Twitter’s argument — as articulated in the blog — for not acting against the handles of news media entities, activists and politicians is that such actions are not consistent with Indian law.

“Because we do not believe that the actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law, and, in keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. To do so, we believe, would violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law,” the blog said.