CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has formed a Fact Check Unit (FCU) under the Special Programme Implementation Department to check the authenticity of information related to the state government across all media platforms.
The unit will check the veracity of information related to the announcements, policies, schemes, guidelines, and initiatives of Tamil Nadu. This would be the official Fact Check Unit of the government for fake news, mis/disinformation, and hate speech pertaining to the government.
"The objective of the FCU will act as a deterrent to the perpetrators/creators and disseminators of fake news and misinformation," the G.O. issued by the State Information Department said.
The government has appointed Iyan Karthikeyan, editor, of the Youturn.in, a fact-checking website as the Mission Director of FCU.
“The Project Lead for Fact Check, working under the Mission Director, is responsible for debunking fake news about the government. He/she is also in charge of tackling the spread of misinformation, hate speech, and communal hatred in online forums and social media that are detrimental to society,” the G.O. said.
Once a fake narrative is identified, the Project Lead should devise strategies to fight the further spread of such misinformation and hatred. The Project Lead will also organise skits, meetings, ‘therukoothu’ etc to promote social harmony and fight communal/caste hatred.
The FCU will have a Central Task Force and it will function from Kalaivanar Arangam in Chennai. Each district will have an analysis team. The FCU will take up complaints related to the government, its ministries, departments, public sector entities, etc for evaluation/fact-checking. Further, the FCU can take suo motu cognizance on fact-checking as well as receive complaints from various sources.
The FCU will segregate the received information after ascertaining whether it falls within its ambit and will consult the Advisory Team from the government legal and police departments besides forwarding it to the concerned authorities to initiate legal action.
"After verifying the authenticity of the received information from the authorised source, the FCU will create awareness through creative content fit for dissemination on the social media platform," the G.O. said. The FCU, after completing the fact check by following due diligence, will place all fact-checked information on all platforms - Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.