Editors Guild Urges Govt To Withdraw Rules That Give Fact-checking Powers to IT Ministry
Moneylife Digital Team 07 April 2023
Deeply disturbed by the information technology (intermediary guidelines and digital media ethics code) amendment rules (IT Amendment Rules), which have been notified by the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), the Editors Guild of India (EGI) has urged the ministry to withdraw this notification and conduct consultations with media organisations and press bodies. 
 
MeitY has introduced amendments to the IT Rules that will have deeply adverse implications for press freedom in the country. As per the rules that have been notified, the ministry has given itself the power to constitute a 'fact-checking unit', which will have sweeping powers to determine what is 'fake or false or misleading', concerning 'any business of the Union government', and with instructions to 'intermediaries', including social media intermediaries, internet service-providers (ISPs) and other service-providers, to not host such content. 
 
"In effect, the government has given itself absolute power to determine what is fake or not, in respect of its own work, and order takedown. The so called 'fact-checking unit' can be constituted by the Ministry by a simple "notification published in the official gazette," EGI says.
 
According to EGI, there is no mention in the IT Amendment Rules of what will be the governing mechanism for such a fact-checking unit, the judicial oversight, the right to appeal, or adherence to the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India case, with respect to take down of content or blocking of social media handles. "All this is against principles of natural justice and akin to censorship."
 
"What is further surprising is that the Ministry has notified this amendment without any meaningful consultation that it had promised after it withdrew the earlier draft amendments it had put out in January 2023. These had given sweeping powers to the Press Information Bureau (PIB), which was universally criticised by media organisations across the country, including EGI. The Ministry's notification of such draconian rules is therefore regrettable," EGI says.
 
 
The amended rules now also make it obligatory on the intermediaries to not to publish, share or host fake, false or misleading information in respect of any business of the Union government.
 
It says, "These fake, false or misleading information will identified by the notified fact check unit of the Union government. it is to be noted that the existing IT rules already required the intermediaries to make reasonable efforts to not host, publish or share any information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature."
 
"The rules already cast an obligation on intermediaries to make reasonable efforts to not host, publish or share any information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature," the ministry says in a release.
 
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