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‘Judge for own verdict’: Congress slams Centre over changes in IT Rules
Referring to suggestion made in the draft IT Rules, Khera said that it is an attempt to hide the truth and save the government's image.
Congress leader Pawan Khera on Thursday alleged that the Centre is now trying to pressurise digital media as it does with the mainstream media. Referring to suggestion in the draft IT Rules, Khera said that it is an attempt to hide the truth and save the government's image.
The Congress leader said that the central government added two line to the law that allow the Press Information Bureau's (PIB) fact-checking unit (FCU) to take down any news or report from the internet that it finds fake, untrue or baseless. “The government here is the judge and the jury to give verdict for itself,” Khera said.
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He further said IT Rules under this government has become the image tailoring ministry. There are instances where the government discards reports terming them fake, he added.
“The amendment (to the IT Rule) will ensure that all free media voices are completely muzzled. They (government) will ensure that truth doesn't escape out in the public,” he said.
The Union ministry of electronics and information technology proposed more amendments to the contentious IT rules, 2021, inserting a clause that will need intermediaries — social media companies like Twitter and Facebook — to ensure users do not post content that has been “fact checked” by the government Press Information Bureau.
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The rule builds on prior obligations for intermediaries to ensure users do not “host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information” that “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” by adding the words: “is identified as fake or false by the fact check unit at the Press Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorised by the central government…”
