The government on Thursday invited public comments on a proposed change to new IT rules to remove content that its media arm PIB has called false or misleading. The Editors Guild of India on Wednesday urged the government to “clear” the draft amendment to IT rules and asked social media companies to remove news articles deemed “fake”, according to the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the proposed changes to IT rules are in line with the government’s commitment to an open, secure, trusted and accountable internet. ”We have circulated the amendments for consultation with stakeholders. As is the practice of a carefully followed government, these amendments will also be brought forward through open consultation – to reflect, discuss and discuss these changes or any other effective means by which we can prevent disinformation / patently incorrect information spread on the Internet by the State / Non-State Actors,” he said Chandrasekhar. The deadline for comments on the proposal is January 25. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday published an amendment to the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which it had earlier released for public consultation.
While the consultation is largely ongoing on the framework rules for online gaming, it has added a small note in the due diligence section to remove content that the PIB or any government-mandated agency has identified as untrue, false or misleading. Under the proposed amendment, due diligence on the part of intermediaries will include efforts not to upload, publish, transmit or share information identified as false or untrue by the fact-checking unit of the Press Information Bureau, which takes cognizance of false information both suo motu and through inquiries sent citizens on its portal or through email and WhatsApp and responds with correct information as far as the same is concerned with the government.
Determining fake news cannot be in the exclusive hands of the government and will result in censorship of the press,” the Guild said in a statement here, expressing “deep concern” over the proposed amendment to the Information Technology (IT) Rules.
Digital rights NGO Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said the introduction of a new category to remove social media content and news media content will have a major impact on freedom of speech, expression and information online and make the union government the final arbiter of what news can be published and what must be removed.
“Such adhocism in consultation processes seriously affects public confidence in the process at a time when the Union Government is withholding responses to consultations from the public domain. The disjointed nature of the consultation processes is also worrying as we await a ‘Digital India Act’ for which no clear, concrete and detailed vision has been articulated,” the IFF said.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
