The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023 were published in a notification by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, on April 6, 2023.
The 2023 amendment gives MeitY the authority to alert the Central Government’s fact-checking unit, which will detect fraudulent, incorrect, or deceptive online information in relation to any business of the Central Government [Rule 3(1)(b)(v)]. As part of the added due diligence requirements in Section 3, social media intermediaries (such as Facebook and Twitter) and telecom service providers are now required to warn users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update, or share any information about any activity of the Central Government that has been flagged by the fact-checking unit as being fake, false, or misleading.
The social media intermediaries may lose their “safe harbour” status if this regulation is broken.
A relevant concern raised in a statement on the 2023 amendment by the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an organisation for digital rights in India, is that the unrestrained authority given to the government’s fact-checking unit to spot fake online content may ultimately have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech and expression.
According to IFF, the fact-checking unit would effectively be given the authority to circumvent Section 69A of the IT Act, which gives the Central Government or its authorised officers the authority to issue directives for prohibiting the public from accessing any information through any computer resource. In order to prohibit public access, the government or the relevant official must adhere to a set of procedures and safety precautions. According to IFF, the announcement also violates the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, which established guidelines for material banning.
Concerns regarding this modification have also been raised by the Editors Guild of India. “EGI is troubled by the revisions to the IT Regulations 2021 that GoIMeitY notified, by granting itself permission to create a “fact checking unit,” with broad powers to ascertain what is “fake or misleading” wrt “business of Central Government,” and order takedown to intermediaries,” it TWEETED.
SRISHTI BHARDWAJ, B.COM LL.B 8TH SEM.
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