Draft amendment to IT Rules | Surreptitious assault on free speech, smacks of Orwellian Big Brother syndrome: Congress

New Delhi The Congress on January 19 termed as “surreptitious assault on free speech” the new amendm

The Congress on January 19 termed as “surreptitious assault on free speech” the new amendment in the draft IT Rules asking social media companies to take down news articles that have been deemed “fake” by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), and demanded its withdrawal.

The Opposition party also said the rules be discussed threadbare in the forthcoming Parliament session.

Explained | The amendments to the IT Rules, 2021

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on January 17 released a modification to the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which it had previously released for public consultation.

The addition in the “due diligence section” for social media intermediaries states an intermediary shall not be allowed to publish information that “deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation” that has been “identified as fake or false by the fact check unit at the PIB of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorised by the Central government for fact-checking”.

Slamming the government, the Congress’ head of media department Pawan Khera alleged that for the Narendra Modi Government, IT rules stand for “image tailoring” rules.

If the Modi Government ‘fact checks’ online news, who will ‘fact check’ the Union Government, Khera asked at a press conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi.