India advocates for PIB to fact-check posts on social media channels

The Indian government has proposed its nodal agency, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) to be the arbiter of truth on what information is misleading online.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT has proposed this amendment as a part of the nation’s upcoming IT rules. In the current draft, the ministry asks social media firms and online gaming companies to undertake due diligence on the content users “host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share” and ensure that they are not “patently false and untrue or misleading in nature.”

The proposal states any information if it, "deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature or is identified as fake or false by the fact check unit at the Press Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting."

PIB has a fact-checking wing that has been flagging social media platforms of any account responsible for fake news. Earlier this month, the government of India banned six YouTube channels for propagating fake news and misinformation after PIB's scrutiny.

In a series of tweets published by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) names of these channels and the fake news being spread by them were listed. The names of these channels are Nation TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Samvad Samachar, Swarnim Bharat, and Sambad TV.

This was not the first time such an action was initiated. In December 2022, the I&B ministry banned 104 YouTube channels, 45 videos, four Facebook accounts, three Instagram accounts, five Twitter handles, and six websites for threatening national security and spreading fake news. The proposal, if approved will legitimise and streamline PIB's fact-checking process.