NEW DELHI: A week after the Mumbai High Court refused to stay the formation of Fact Check Unit (FCU), the Centre on Wednesday notified the division under the Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). The Unit verifies claims or news about government policies, regulations, announcements and measures.
In a Gazette notification issued on Wednesday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notified the PIB FCU under the provisions of the sub-clause (v) of sub-rule (1) of rule 3 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The Unit was established in November 2019 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 Central Government.
A division bench comprising Justice Gautam Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale of the High Court on March 13 dismissed the applications seeking a stay on the setting up of the FCU pending final disposal of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Rules.
The FCU headed by a senior officer of the Indian Information Service (IIS) is mandated to counter misinformation on Government policies, initiatives and schemes either suo motu or under a reference via complaints. It actively monitors, detects, and counters disinformation campaigns, ensuring that false information about the Government is promptly exposed and corrected.
The Editors Guild of India (EGI, which has been opposing the formation of FCU since inception, said that it had moved the Supreme Court against the notification.
“We were opposed to it. We remain opposed to it because I don’t think that in a democratic country like us, the Government alone can’t decide what fake information is. We have filed a SLP (Special Leave Petition) before the Supreme Court. Let’s see how the apex court decides,” said the general secretary of EGI Ruben Banerjee.
Political satirist and comedian Kunal Kamra, who is the petitioner before the High Court, has also moved the apex court seeking an interim stay on the constitution of FCU. According to the rules, the social media platforms and other online intermediaries will need to remove the content if marked ‘fake’.
The Government officials said that citizens could also reach out to the PIB FCU through various modes, including through WhatsApp (+918799711259), email (pibfactcheck@gmail.com), Twitter (@PIBFactCheck) and PIB’s website ( https://factcheck.pib.gov.in/). The Fact Check Unit’s WhatsApp Hotline Number is a handy tool for such people where one only has to forward a suspicious message, they added
