New Delhi: The Union government on Thursday, April 6, notified norms making it obligatory on “intermediaries” – defined as “an intermediary, including social media intermediary and significant social media intermediary” – to “not publish, share or host fake, false or misleading information in respect of any business of the Central government”. The fact-checking unit of the government will identify what is “fake, false or misleading information”.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s gazette notification modifying the Information Technology rules, 2021, was released on Thursday.
“Government has decided to notify an entity through Meity and that organisation then would be the fact-checker for all aspects of content online and only those content that are related to the government,” PTI reported minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar as saying.
Internet firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter may lose protection if they fail to remove content identified by the government-notified fact-checker as “false or misleading information”, the minister said.
“We will certainly have an outliner on what the organisation will look like. Whether it will be PIB fact check and what will be the dos and don’ts. We will certainly have that shared as we notify,” the minister said.
He said that the governments press and information bureau (PIB) needs to be notified to be a fact-checker under the IT rules.
‘A chilling effect on free speech’
The notification of these amended rules will “cement the chilling effect on the fundamental right to speech and expression”, particularly on news publishers, journalists, activists and others, said digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation.
“The fact check unit could effectively issue a takedown order to social media platforms and even other intermediaries across the internet stack, potentially bypassing the process statutorily prescribed under the Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000,” it added.
“In addition to circumventing the parliamentary procedures required to expand the scope of the parent legislation, i.e. the IT Act, these notified amendments are also in gross violation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court ruling in Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India (2013) which laid down strict procedures for blocking content. Finally, the vagueness of the undefined terms such as “fake”, “false”, “misleading” make such over-broad powers further susceptible to misuse,” it further said.
Several opposition parties had raised concerns over the IT Rules’ draft amendments and termed them as “highly arbitrary and unilateral”.
“This is nothing but silencing the internet, the digital media platforms, and the social media platforms – which are the only last bastions that are standing and still asking questions of this government. The surrender of mainstream media has emboldened the government to do this to digital and social media platforms,” Congress spokesperson and chairperson of social media and digital platforms, Supriya Shrinate, had told The Wire.
The Wire, the Leaflet and other media organisations have challenged the constitutionality of the IT Rules, 2021, and the Bombay high court has stayed the provision of those sections directly applicable to digital news sites.
However, the new rules apply to social media intermediaries like Twitter, who will come under pressure to delete or block content that the government will unilaterally declare as “fake” or “misleading”, terms which are not defined by statute.
Twitter has also challenged the vires of IT Rules before the Karnataka high court but there is no stay on the provisions which apply to intermediaries.
The Modi government has sought the transfer of all challenges to the IT Rules to a single bench of the Supreme Court but hearings on this plea have not yet commenced.