February 26, 2021 Earlier this year, scores of Indians flocked to Signal overnight after WhatsApp announced an update to its privacy policy. Within a fortnight, the app clocked 26.4 million downloads in the country. It was endorsed by magnates abroad and in India, including billionaire Elon Musk, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Indian businessmen Anand Mahindra and Vijay Shekhar Sharma. But now, India’s new social media guidelines could mean an end to Signal’s success in the country. As part of the government’s plan to enact greater oversight, social media companies will be obliged to “enable the identification of the first originator” of information on its platforms if required by the authorities, according to the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 released yesterday (Feb. 25).