More power to fact checkers, not gov
Supreme Court stayed GoI's notification establishing PIB's Fact Checking Unit (FCU) to act as a 'deterrent' against creation and dissemination of fake news or misinformation regarding GoI's 'business'. Being 'involved' in a piece of (mis)information makes gov bear a conflict of interest, thereby making it not the most neutral of umpires in disputes.
The top court's stay order will be in place until the Bombay High Court decides on the challenges to Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules 2023.
IT Rules stipulate that intermediaries such as social media platforms must exert 'reasonable efforts' to prevent users from uploading information about the gov that is 'identified as fake, false, or misleading'. Failure to comply with FCU's decision on such news could result in the loss of their safe harbour status.
With such a threat looming, it would be reasonable to believe that platforms would be happy to consider even unflattering information about the government that is truthful to be fake. Remember, a few months ago, the Karnataka government also proposed such an idea before protests forced it to abandon that plan.
But, yes, fake news is dangerous, especially with AI-related tech coming into play.
But a government watchdog can, as the country saw during the Emergency, lead to selective targeting, censorship and propaganda-peddling. Fact-checking has always been — and must remain — a self-regulatory feature of the news industry.
