Govt to hold separate consultation next month on PIB fact-check

The government proposal of amendment has received huge protest from media organisations

The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, on Thursday, extended the deadline for seeking stakeholders' views on the draft amendment to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 days after media bodies urged the government to drop the proposed amendments to IT Rules that seek to direct social media platforms to take down news or information identified as "fake" by the Press Information Bureau's Fact Checking Unit.

"In response to requests received from stakeholders, the Ministry has decided to extend the last date for receipt of comments on the said amendment till 20.2.2023," a ministry notification said. The earlier deadline was January 25.

The government proposal for the amendment has received huge protests from media organisations including the Indian Newspaper Society, the Press Association of India, Editors Guild. These organisations alleged that the government's move will undermine press freedom. The proposal also gives sweeping powers to the PIB while resulting in censorship of the press, these organisations have alleged.

Read | A plan to censor all the bad news?

Minister of State Electronics & Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Wednesday said that the government would hold discussions with stakeholders early next month before the proposal was implemented.

Criticising the proposal, the Editors Guild of India reiterated that regardless of the absence of procedures, the amendment was in itself an illegal move as the PIB has no constitutional authority to be a regulator of the press in any capacity.

The government had last week released a modification to the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which it had earlier released for public consultation.

During the consultations on framing rules for online gaming, the IT ministry had added a note proposing that due diligence by intermediaries shall include making such efforts to not upload, publish, transmit or share information identified as fake or false by the PIB.

However, the government has not extended the timeline for feedback on the draft amendment relating to online gaming, which also had the same deadline.