Centre's attempt to muzzle fact-checkers, stifle accountability

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: It has come to light that the Union government is mooting making it obligatory upon fact checkers, online or otherwise, to register with a state body.

The Indian Express on Thursday reported that the conditions would be a part of the Digital India Bill (DIB) to “ensure accountability” from online platforms. Moreover, the Centre wants to carry out said registration process in a phased manner and give “legacy” media outlets the ability to register first.

Critics have pointed out that the job of journalists and fact-checkers is to debunk tall claims of governments and it is not in the interest of those in power to give credibility to actors who would hold them accountable.

Moreover, the worst-case scenario would be Bill restricting or prohibiting non-registered fact-checkers from doing their jobs. DIB constitutes an attempt by the Centre to establish a “comprehensive legal framework” to govern the internet domestically.

It also absorbs provisions mentioned in the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, the proposed Indian Telecommunication Bill 2022, and a policy for governance and handling of non-personal data. The DIB Bill, which also seeks to “classify” online intermediaries, is likely to be made public by late June or early July.

“The Ministry is in the final stages of drafting the Bill. For fact-checkers, there is a consideration that they should be registered with the government,” a senior official told Indian Express. “There is also a plan to not register ‘nonlegacy’ fact-checking bodies,” he added.

Another attempt at regulation

What’s more is that attempts to regulate or rather repudiate fact-checks showing the Central government in a poor light have been in place for some time.

Back in December 2019, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) started a fact-checking arm called PIB Fact Check. They have accounts on major social media platforms. However, its stated objectives run contrary to the definition of fact checkers, who scrutinize and debunk tall claims made by governments.

PIB Fact Check on the other hand claims “to identify misinformation related to government’s policies and schemes that are circulating on various social media platforms”. The body is known to have debunked fake news such as a WhatsApp forward back in May 2020 claiming that there would be a ten-day military lockdown in Mumbai.

However, it has also gone after news outlets such as Indian Express, The Wire, Caravan, Brut India and others, particularly for stories critical of the Centre’s handling of the pandemic. For instance, PIB Fact Check simply repudiated without proof a May 2020 Wire story that uncovered the links between top BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rajkot-based company Jyoti CNC, which had donated ‘Dhaman-1’ ventilators, which doctors in Gujarat and Puducherry government hospitals had shunned for being faulty.

Smothering IT rules

In April 2023, the Centre notified the Information Technology Rules, 2023, which led to the setting up of a government-run fact-check unit, which labels news critical of the Centre as false or misleading. There has been a writ petition in a court, demanding the abolition of the rules.

A thorn in the side of those in power

Fact-checks are essential in what some term the post-truth age, wherein the powerful are not held to account for peddling falsehoods. For instance, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg had rejected the idea of factchecking politicians since they are “over scrutinized”.

On the other hand, factcheckers could potentially be asked to register with the state to be able to criticize it. Prime among the fake news offenders in India is the ruling party’s IT cell, which is essentially a troll farm that peddles communally charged falsehoods that have the potential to inspire hate crimes.

No less a figure than Modi’s deputy Amit Shah as the BJP national president had admitted to the same in a rally in Rajasthan in 2018. “We are able to take any kind of message we want to the public, whether sweet or sour, true or fake. We can do this as we have 32 lakh people in our WhatsApp groups,” he’d said.