NEW DELHI: The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has urged the Centre to withdraw the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023 issued by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology on April 6.
“As per the newly notified rules, the ministry will enjoy the power to constitute a fact-checking unit, which will have sweeping powers to determine what is ‘fake or false or misleading’ with respect to any business of the Central government’. This unit will also have the power to issue instructions to intermediaries, including social media platforms, Internet Service Providers and other service providers, to not host such content and take out the content if it has been published,” it said.
“The Indian Newspaper Society is constrained to state that this would have the effect of the government or its designated agency enjoying absolute power to determine what is fake or not, in respect of its own work, and order it to be taken down. Such power is seen to be arbitrary, as it is exercised without hearing the parties, and thus a violation of all principles of natural justice,” it said.