{"id":33297,"date":"2023-01-18T01:45:08","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T20:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33297"},"modified":"2025-04-19T21:02:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T15:32:53","slug":"fake-news-draft-amendments-to-the-it-rules-empowers-pib-to-take-down-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/fake-news-draft-amendments-to-the-it-rules-empowers-pib-to-take-down-fake-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake News: Draft amendments to the IT Rules empowers PIB to take down fake news"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Fake News and Laws to Punish Offenders?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary Related to Draft Amendments to Curb Fake News<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Union Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has recently introduced a new draft of amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.<\/li>\n<li>According to a draft proposal, any piece of news identified as &#8220;fake&#8221; by the fact-checking unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) &#8211; the Centre&#8217;s nodal agency for sharing news updates &#8211; will not be allowed on online intermediaries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Fake News and Laws to Punish Offenders?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Meaning of Fake News:<\/strong> Fake news is referred to as those news stories that are false, fabricated, with no verifiable facts, sources or quotes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Types of Fake News: <\/strong>Satire or parody (no intention to cause harm), misleading content, imposter content, fabricated\/false\/manipulated content, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Laws to control effect of fake news:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2008. The offence related to <strong>electronic communication<\/strong> shall be punished under section 66 D of IT Act.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Disaster Management Act, 2005<\/strong>. Whoever makes\/circulates a false alarm\/warning as to disaster\/its severity\/magnitude, leading to panic shall be punished under the DM Act.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Indian Penal Code, 1860<\/strong>. Fake news creating false alarm in public, fake news creating riots and information causing defamation shall be punished under different sections of the IPC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary Related to Draft Amendments to Curb Fake News<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>What are the new proposals?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The new draft, which included regulations for online gaming platforms, was dramatically <strong>expanded to include removing fake news<\/strong> from online intermediaries (social media platforms, internet service providers, web hosting providers).<\/li>\n<li>According to the latest proposal, there is now the <strong>possibility of content takedowns<\/strong> because something has been <strong>recognised as fake news by the PIB.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The condition has been added to the <strong>list of due diligence criteria <\/strong>that intermediaries must follow in order to enjoy legal immunity from third-party content that they host.<\/li>\n<li>The proposal also suggests that content that has been <strong>marked as misleading by any other agency<\/strong> authorised by the government for fact-checking or in respect of any business of the Centre will not be allowed on online intermediaries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the concerns related to the above proposals?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Members of civil society have expressed concern over the proposal, fearing that <strong>anything the government contradicts<\/strong> might be used to justify content takedowns.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It could potentially set a dangerous precedent:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>PIB\u2019s fact-checking unit was set up in 2019 to verify news related to the government\u2019s ministries, departments and schemes.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It routinely flags content that it believes is false or misleading, <strong>yet it rarely explains<\/strong> why it has flagged a specific piece of information.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The PIB&#8217;s fact-checking unit has itself tweeted (occasionally) inaccurate information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are the laws to control effect of fake news in India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Information Technology (IT) Act 2008 regulates offences related to electronic communication. The Disaster Management Act 2005 regulates false alarm\/warning as to disaster\/its severity\/magnitude. The Indian Penal Code 1860 regulates fake news creating false alarm in public, fake news creating riots and information causing defamation.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/technology\/news-flagged-as-fake-by-pib-not-allowed-on-online-platforms-meity-8388127\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><strong><u>News flagged as \u2018fake\u2019 by PIB not allowed on online platforms: MeitY<\/u><\/strong><\/a> |\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/news\/india\/explained-what-is-fake-news-on-social-media-and-laws-to-punish-offenders-3520481.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><strong><u>News18<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fake news is news stories that are false, fabricated, with no verifiable facts, sources or quotes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}