Tamil Nadu constitutes fact-check unit under Udhayanidhi Stalin

The government has hired Iyan Karthikeyan, who was the Editor of the fact-checking website YouTurn, as the head of the new unit with a monthly salary of Rs 3 lakh.

After Karnataka, the Tamil Nadu government has formed a Fact Check Unit to act as a “deterrent to perpetrators, creators and disseminators of fake news and misinformation” which will directly come under the control of Sports Minister Udhayanidhi, son of Chief Minister M K Stalin.

The government has also hired Iyan Karthikeyan, who was the Editor of the fact-checking website YouTurn, as the head of the new unit with a monthly salary of Rs 3 lakh.

A Government Order (GO) issued by R Selvaraj, Secretary, Tamil Development and Information Department, said the new unit will check the authenticity of information related to the state government of Tamil Nadu across all media platforms.

“The veracity of information related to the announcements, policies, schemes, guidelines and initiatives of Government of Tamil Nadu shall be checked,” the GO said, adding that the unit will have a Central Task Force based out of Chennai and will be headed by a Mission Director.

The Fact Check Unit will be part of the Special Programme Implementation department held by Udhayanidhi.

The Mission Director, Karthikeyan, will be assisted by a Project Director to coordinate training and content writing, and a Joint Director from the Information and Public Relations Department. They will coordinate public campaigns and source fake news, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech to analyze the content received and fact-check them, the GO added.

The fact-checking unit has been permitted to hire 80 individuals throughout the state and is also authorized to utilize the space at Kalaivanar Arangam, located in the heart of the city. The unit holds the authority to verify the accuracy of any information pertaining to the state government, regardless of the platform. It can take action on its own to verify information and also respond to complaints from various sources.

“I am appointed as Mission Director for the Fact check unit under the administration of SPI, Tamil Nadu,” Karthikeyan wrote on X. Efforts to reach him did not yield a response.

The decision to constitute a Fact Check Unit has triggered a major row with several questioning the move. Political commentator Sumanth Raman said the trend of governments setting up "fact-checking" units is merely to intimidate and harass opponents of the ruling party.

“Whether at State or Centre, the objective is the same. Bottom Line: Hate speech and fake news can only be propagated by supporters of the ruling party in the region. Congress did it in Karnataka and now DMK is following suit. Centre already announced such a move earlier,” he wrote on X.

Once the Fact Check Unit receives complaints, the information collected by the team would be split into actionable pools and non-actionable pools. From the actionable pool, the Central Task Force would consult with the Advisory Team from the Government's legal and police departments and forward it to the concerned authorities to initiate legal action, the GO added.