Why IT’s draft rules on PIB’s fact checks can do with a few more checks

🔴 December 16, 2020: The PIB unit calls an Intelligence Bureau recruitment notice as fake. Next day, a division of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry redflags PIB’s fact check as inaccurate.

Under the new draft of amendments to Information Technology Rules announced Tuesday by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), the above posts would have to be removed by online entities, without any recourse or avenue for redressal.

The proposal on “fake” news inserted as a postscript to the rules on online gaming further says that content that has been marked misleading by “any other agency authorised by the government for fact checking” or “in respect of any business of the Centre” will not be allowed on online intermediaries.

While The Indian Express sent detailed questions to both MeitY and PIB, the government Thursday said that the draft amendments to IT Rules were circulated for consultation with stakeholders. “As is the practice meticulously followed by the government, these amendments will also be put through open consultations – to reflect, discuss and deliberate on these amendments or any other such effective means through which we can prevent misinformation/ patently wrong information circulated on the Internet by State/ Non-State actors,” Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a statement.

The PIB’s fact-check unit has redflagged more than a thousand ‘unverified’ reports so far. Sources said it takes cognisance of such reports suo motu and also when citizens send queries on its portal, or through email or Whatsapp. While PIB’s fact-checks routinely debunk dubious WhatsApp forwards and social media posts, its ‘fake news’ stamps on some posts raise questions.

For instance, in the case involving the Intelligence Bureau notice, the PIB fact check unit claimed on December 16, 2020, that a recruitment notice issued by the Bureau was misleading, and stamped the picture with a ‘fake’ banner. A day later though, the Publications Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) issued a correction on PIB’s ‘fact-check’ and said the picture of the recruitment notice was genuine.

“Attention is drawn to the action taken by the PIB Fact Check Unit on December 16, 2020, whereby the advertisement of Intelligence Bureau (Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India) appearing on pages 6 and 7 of Employment News scheduled to be released on December 19, 2020 has been stamped as ‘fake’. The Intelligence Bureau has confirmed in writing that the advertisement is genuine,” the Publications Division had said in its clarification to PIB’s fact checking effort.

Then on June 19, 2020, there was a news report that the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) had directed its personnel and their family members to delete 52 mobile apps, with alleged China-links, from their mobile phones for security reasons. The list included apps like popular short video platform TikTok, messaging app WeChat and apparel marketplace Shein. Reacting to these reports, PIB’s fact check unit claimed that the STF had not issued any such advisory. However, the task force’s Inspector General Amitabh Yash subsequently confirmed he had indeed passed such an order. UP ADG (Law & Order) Prashant Kumar had told The Indian Express that the order was meant for the “STF only as directed by the IG on his (Yash) own initiative”. Days later, the Centre did ban 59 apps with alleged China-links, and that list included the apps that STF officer Yash had mentioned earlier.

In the July 2020 case, The Indian Express reported that the Special Commissioner of Delhi Police (Crime) had issued an order to Investigating Officers which stated that the arrests of “some Hindu youth” from riot-hit areas in Northeast Delhi had led to a “degree of resentment among the Hindu community” and “due care and precaution” must be taken while making arrests. The same day, PIB fact check unit’s twitter handle called the story ‘misleading’, without denying any of the facts reported. It simply relied on a Delhi Police rejoinder which said that it “ignores the spirit of the order”.

Incidentally, while the ministry had initially set out to introduce rules on online gaming in January beginning, the proposal on “fake” news was inserted subsequently without it having any direct relation to online gaming. On January 2, MeitY had first released the rules for online gaming and invited stakeholder comments until January 17. But that evening, it extended the consultation period until January 25 and also uploaded a new draft of amendments to the Information Technology Rules, 2021, to include regulations for online gaming platforms. It was along with these changes, that it added the proposal to disallow information online that has been debunked by PIB. However, industry stakeholders have also quietly raised concerns over the way the latter was brought into the draft amendments.

“We will now have to send them another submission on the latest proposed amendment,” a stakeholder said.