After much debate, the Centre notified multiple amendments to the IT Rules, 2021 on Thursday (April 6). The new rules give the government the authority to detect and prevent the spread of false information about it.
On the same day, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, announced the formation of a new entity to verify all government-related online content.
“The government has decided to notify an entity through MeitY, and that organisation will then be the fact checker for all aspects of online content, but only those related to the government,” Chandrasekhar said at a press conference.
The new agency will report to the Ministry of Information Technology. Furthermore, the amended rules require social media intermediaries not to ‘publish, share, or host’ fake news about the central government.
Noting that stricter measures are needed to combat disinformation and misinformation, Chandrasekhar stated that the velocity of fake news is 8X-20X higher in terms of reach and significance than normal information. He also called online fake news a form of internet criminality and advocated for stricter regulations.
The amended IT rules have a direct impact on social media intermediaries like Meta, Twitter, and Snapchat, as well as other major tech players, and make it mandatory for them to combat fake news or risk losing their safe harbour status.
In the last decade, these technology behemoths, according to Chandrasekhar, transformed the internet into islands of commercial dominance and exploitation. As a result, it is the state’s responsibility to ensure that these major players are held accountable to the “smallest of users” and that no user harm, criminality, or digital illegality creeps in, he added.
The announcement is expected to ruffle some social media feathers. The previous iteration of the IT Rules, 2021, already required social media platforms to make reasonable efforts to avoid hosting fake news. The amendments this time make the Centre the repository of all government-related information.
While it is unclear how these platforms will implement the change, this follows similar amendments to the IT Rules. The IT Rules were last amended in December of last year to include standards such as the establishment of grievance appellate tribunals, the expeditious removal of prohibited content, and a slew of other guidelines for social media intermediaries.
