PIB Fact Check got over 28K 'actionable queries' since November 2020; highest in 2021

According to the written reply by Anurag Thakur, 2021 saw the unit getting 15,412 "actionable queries", while 2022 saw a decrease to 8,107.

The Press Information Bureau's Fact Check Unit has received over 28,000 "actionable queries" since November 2020, with the year 2021 accounting for the highest number of such queries, the government has informed Rajya Sabha.

According to a written reply by Information and Technology Minister Anurag Thakur last Thursday, the year 2021 saw the unit getting 15,412 "actionable queries", while 2022 saw the count decreasing to 8,107.

In 2023 till June 30, it received 3,389 queries. In November and December of 2020, the unit got 1,472 actionable queries.

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The highest for a month was April, 2021 when the unit received 5,387 queries, followed by May (1,754) and June (1,540).

The response in the Rajya Sabha did not mention the reasons for the surge in these months, but the spike came during the time the country witnessed the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year saw the queries vacillating between 406 (February) and 847 (June), said the response to the written question by CPI Parliamentary Party leader Binoy Viswam in Rajya Sabha.

The Fact Check Unit, set up by the PIB in November 2019, takes cognizance of fake news relating to the Union government -- both suo-motu and by way of queries sent by citizens on its portal or through email and social media.

"The Unit responds to the relevant queries with correct and updated information related to the policies, schemes, guidelines, initiatives, etc of the Government of India," Thakur said.

"The PIB undertakes fact checking through a rigorous process involving multiple layers of cross-checking through Government Open Source information and verification from the concerned Government of India organisation," he said.

Thakur also said no Fact Check Unit has been notified by the Government under the provisions of Information Technology (Amendment) Rules, 2023. This comes against the backdrop of a controversy over the government's earlier move to assign the PIB's Fact Check Unit as the arbiter of truth under the IT rules. The move had been opposed by a section, alleging that it would give the government an upper hand and could impinge on press freedom among others.