View: Making sense of the standoff between govt and WhatsApp over new IT rules SECTIONS Last Updated: May 28, 2021, 12:05 AM IST Share Synopsis The public square, where citizens are meant to come together to hold elected representatives accountable, has now been hijacked by corporations, some of whom act like government censors, while others claim to act on behalf of the public, or both. Amid this choreographed spectacle in India, social media intermediaries appear to be challenging the government’s right to enforce its own policy requirements. Agencies The intermediaries were threatened with the loss of their operating licences or, at the very least, with losing the protections they enjoyed on account of being middlemen. That deadline has now passed.