Kunal Kamra seeks interim stay on Fact-Checking Unit under IT Amendment Rules in Supreme Court
Kunal Kamra moves Supreme Court seeking interim stay on Fact-Checking Unit (FCU) under amended IT Rules 2023 to identify fake content against government. Bombay High Court earlier refused to grant stay on FCU setup.
Kunal Kamra, a stand-up comedian, has moved the Supreme Court of India seeking an interim stay on the fact-checking unit (FCU) under the recently amended Information Technology (IT) Rules 2023.
The FCU is being constituted to identify fake and false content on social media against the government.
Earlier the Bombay High Court had refused to grant an interim stay onsetting up of the fact-checking unit under the 2023 Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules (IT Amendment Rules 2023).
What is Fact-Checking Unit?
On April 6, 2023, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government promulgated certain amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, including a provision for an FCU to flag “fake, false or misleading online content related to the government”.
Under the IT Rules, if the FCU comes across or is informed about any posts that are fake, false, and contain misleading facts about the business of the government, it would flag off the same to social media intermediaries.
Once such a post is flagged off, the intermediary has the option of either taking down the post or putting a disclaimer on the same.
In taking the second option, the intermediary loses its safe harbour/immunity and stands liable for legal action.
What is Kunal Kamra's argument?
Kunal Kamra said that any information identified as "fake, false or misleading" by the FCU would be taken down by the intermediary in order to avoid the risk of potential legal liability. Kunal Kamra argues that the FCU regime will coerce social media companies to implement self-interested censorship of online content about the Central government.
The plea by Kamra mentions that while these units are facially directed at intermediaries, it is the users and the information created and hosted by them on various platforms that are the stakeholders, it said.
Kunal Kamra's plea claims that the establishment of FCU would muzzle speech against the Central government.
“It coerces intermediaries to execute a regime of self-interested censorship of online content relating to the business of the central government," it said. "Intermediaries, as profit making, commercial enterprises, would naturally choose to avoid civil or criminal liability for third-party content, and would invariably remove it." the plea read.
The plea also mentioned that there is already a robust, existing mechanism to address the concern of fake news about the Union government in the form of the Press Information Bureau.
Catch all the Business News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
Business NewsNewsIndiaKunal Kamra seeks interim stay on Fact-Checking Unit under IT Amendment Rules in Supreme Court
First Published:20 Mar 2024, 02:45 PM IST
- Top Gainers
- Top Losers
- 52 Week High