Apar GuptaThe Government of India has notified the Fact Check Unit (FCU) under the Press Information Bureau as the central fact-checking authority under the IT Rules of 2021.
Archives for the tag IT Rules
MeitY Issues Advisory to All Intermediaries to Comply with Existing IT Rules
In an advisory issued on December 26, 2023, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has mandated that all digital intermediaries comply with existing IT rules to address the growing concern of misinformation, particularly AI-powered deepfakes.
MeitY holds Digital India Dialogues with Digital Intermediaries on Deepfakes & IT rules
Government Issues Advisory to Social Media Intermediaries on Misinformation and Deepfakes
Ministry of Truth
The rules were framed without the extensive consultation promised by the government.
MeitY notifies Fact Check Unit (FCU) and Online Gaming rules
The Indian government has amended the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, to address online gaming and misinformation about government business
India’s juggernaut of censorship
There has been a gradual and inexorable expansion of IT Rules into the ‘everything law’, leading one to ask where free debate and expression is in a digital and democratic India.
MeitY notifies IT Amendment Rules, 2022
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has notified amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021). The 2022 Amendments have heightened the compliance requirements for intermediaries, potentially increasing the risk to their safe harbour protections.
Against Rules of the Game
Beyond such technicalities, the larger danger of the IT Rules glares through when the court observes that, “people would be starved of the liberty of thought and feel suffocated to exercise their right of freedom of speech and expression, if they are made to live in present times of content regulation on the internet with the Code of Ethics hanging over their head as the Sword of Damocles.”
Accountability with a Cost
In the polarised environment that we now inhabit, there are few public agreements. One of these rare instances is an agreement that social media is broken. For many commentators, this is an area that needs urgent government intervention. But the form and shape of this intervention becomes again an issue of adversarial contest and controversy. This issue is fundamental to how today’s information ecology operates as large Silicon Valley platforms have become gatekeepers of social behaviours and the tremendous power they hold is anti-democratic.