Editorial. Govt must rethink new IT Rules which curb media freedom

News is, more often than not, information relating to public good/interest which governments could conceal, suppress or distort. Investigating agencies, punitive laws and other methods are deployed to this end. They simultaneously try and co-opt journalists to paint a more favourable picture about them. Therefore, they are partisan entities in the ebb and flow of news — and not impartial observers who can accord to themselves the role of judging the veracity of news.

This is precisely why the government’s move now to appoint a fact-checker under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023, to determine what is “false”, “fake” or “misleading” news, is worrying. Once news concerning the central government has been characterised as “false”, “fake” or “misleading” by its own fact-checker, social media platforms and other intermediaries on the internet will be required to take it down. Pressure has been sought to be applied in the Rules by holding that in case the content is not taken down, the social media platform or the intermediary opens itself to prosecution and court processes. Social media companies will have to take down the content or risk losing their “safe harbour” protections which allow intermediaries to avoid liabilities for what third parties post on their websites. This bypasses provisions in the IT Act on takedown orders.

Read also: Internet societies, NGOs raise voice against ‘Fact Check’ in IT Rules 

The Minister for IT & Electronics Rajeev Chandrashekhar has said that the mainstream media is already regulated by laws, including defamation. The legal boundaries have now been set for the social media and the intermediaries. As the Editors’ Guild of India has pointed out, this sets the ground for censorship because this fact-checking unit has no governing mechanism or judicial oversight. Hence, the move blanks out the right to appeal and goes against the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal-versus-Union of India case with respect to take-down of the content or blocking of social media handles on essentially subjective considerations. Imposing blanket restrictions on social media amounts to halting public access to mainstream media news. Another disturbing characterisation is “misleading” content. While the facts of a certain news report may not be in dispute, the government fact-checker is free to decide whether the narrative or presentation is “misleading”. The intermediary can then be asked to take it down. The government should not be playing the role of judge, jury and executioner, without scope for appeal.

Also read: Govt launches Grievance Appellate Committee as part of IT Rules 

What in effect it translates into is that even when a regulated media entity has not violated any existing law, the government fact-checker can block the news content it has created by bearing down on the social media and the intermediaries. In the digital age, it amounts to suppressing news. Journalists’ associations have been right in calling it out as censorship and curbs on media freedom. The government must rethink the amended rules.

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