“India’s new IT Rules amendment effectively empowers the government to be the judge and the jury on online content pertaining to itself. Fake, false and misleading are subjective terms with no legal definition. They can be used to arbitrarily demand removal of online content such as editorials, investigative journalism, satire, and more,” Namrata Maheshwari, Asia Pacific Policy Counsel at Access Now stated within the assertion issued on Tuesday.
On April 6 this 12 months, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified an modification to the IT Rules underneath which it proposed organising a state-appointed physique to fact-check all government-related content material on-line deemed as misinformation or disinformation.
In their letter, the 16 businesses stated that the proposal would “grant the government arbitrary, overbroad, and unchecked censorship powers that threaten the rights to freedom of expression and opinion enshrined in the Indian Constitution and under international human rights law”.
“The rules severely threaten press freedoms and the ability of journalists, writers, activists, civil society organisations, human rights defenders, artists, politicians, and others, to speak freely online,” the letter stated.
As per the proposal, the federal government fact-check physique can be accountable just for info associated to central authorities schemes and can ship related notices informing intermediaries of content material that has been deemed misinformation or disinformation by it.
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Intermediaries that don’t agree with the selections made by the state-run fact-check unit could be free to not take down the content material in query. They would, nevertheless, be disadvantaged of the protections granted to them underneath Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which grants web intermediaries immunity from content material posted by customers and different third events.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com