PIB’s Fact check unit

PIBs Fact check unit

News: A day after the Centre notified the Fact Check Unit under the Press Information Bureau to address the challenge of fake news, the Supreme Court today paused the notification, setting aside the Bombay High Courts go-ahead to the governments move.

Background:
 The provision for a Fact Check Unit was part of the amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, brought by the Centre last year.
 Under the rules, if this unit comes across or is informed about any posts that are fake, false, and contain misleading facts about the business of the government, it would flag them to social media intermediaries. 
 Once such a post is flagged, the intermediary has the option of taking it down or putting a disclaimer. In taking the second option, the intermediary risks legal action.
 The petitioners had expressed concerns of censorship and said the new rules would restrict users from expressing themselves freely on social media. They had said the social media intermediaries would readily remove posts flagged by the governments Fact Check Unit to avoid legal troubles. 

What is PIBs FCU?
 PIB’s Fact-Check Unit was started with a stated objective of acting as a deterrent to creators and disseminators of fake news and misinformation. It also provides people with an easy avenue to report suspicious and questionable information pertaining to the Government of India.

 
What is the mandate of FCU?
 To counter misinformation on government policies, initiatives and schemes either suo-moto or on reference. 
 It ensures false information about government is promptly exposed and corrected.
 When this unit flags a piece of content as fake, social media platforms will have to take it down as part of their due diligence requirement under the IT Rules. 
 Additionally, ISP and TSP’s like Jio, airtel, Vodafone etc will have to block the web link of a particular fake news information.

Why government notified PIBs FCU?
 To counter the issue of rising fake news cases. 
 To improve accountability of social media intermediaries which will promptly act to remove false and misleading content. 
 To prevent misuse of online platforms for illegal or harmful activities. Example, regulate menace of deep fakes.
 To monitor and prevent content that provokes hate speech, 
violence 

Concerns associated with FCU:
 It’s power to censor content could have a chilling effect on free speech and expression provided under Art 19(1)(a). 
 The government can misuse FCU to silence dissenting voices that criticize government on its policies. 
 No clear definition on what constitutes as fake or misleading information. It may lead to arbitrary censorship by the government. 
 It goes against the judgement laid out by Supreme court in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India case and Section 69A of the IT act which extended the right to free speech into the online space. 

Way Forward 
 Assurance from Government’s side on credibility of functioning of its Fact checking unit. 
 Co-operation with civil society, media organizations to develop a transparent and participatory process to decide which content constitutes fake or misleading. 
 Need for an independent and non-partisan fact checking body.