Centre notifies Press Information Bureau’s fact check unit under IT rules

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Wednesday notified the Press Information Bureau's fact check unit for the Centre under IT Rules of 2021.

According to MeitY's official notification, the PiB unit will be the fact check unit for the central government. 

"The central government hereby notifies the Fact Check Unit under the Press Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as the fact check unit of the Central Government for the purposes of the said sub-clause, in respect of any business of the Central Government," the notification read.

In February, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, in an interview with PTI said the fact check unit is not a form of censorship but a tool to help platforms dealing with disputed government information.

"When the fact check unit says this is right or this is wrong, all platforms have to do is label it. Now there is nothing in that, that is censorship. But some people have characterised that, specifically editors guild, etc, who are looking for a cause to hang their hat on," Chandrasekhar said.

The amendments to IT Rules 2021 was challenged by the Editors' Guild of India in June last year, alleging that amendments "will have deeply adverse implications for press freedom in the country".

Chandrasekhar had denied the allegations saying that the Modi-government wants to have a lesser role to be arbiter of disputes between consumers and the platforms.

“We had a situation in 2021, with every dispute between a consumer and a social media platform getting referred to us. We want platforms to be accountable under law, to the consumers' grievances,” he had said.

"We want consumers to have the process of going to an independent regulator or to the court to have their dispute with the platform sorted not to the government," the minister added.

(With agency inputs)