Centre notifies its own fact check unit under PIB: What is it?

🔴 The unit will take a call on whether online information related to the Central Government is accurate.

🔴 The body will have the authority to label content related to the government on online platforms like Facebook and Twitter as “fake” or “misleading”.

🔴 Content flagged by the unit will have to be taken down if they wish to retain their ‘safe harbour,’ which is legal immunity they enjoy against third-party content.

🔴 Social media sites will have to take down such posts, and internet service providers will have to block URLs of such content.

🔴The Bombay High Court had on March 14 refused to stay the setting up of a Fact Checking Unit (FCU) under the recently amended Information Technology Rules.

🔴 The plea was filed in the Bombay HC by stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra, Editors Guild of India, News Broadcasters and Digital Association and Association of Indian Magazines, among others, challenging the rules terming them arbitrary, unconstitutional, and in violation of fundamental rights.

🔴 Earlier, the Editors Guild of India had said that the “determination of fake news cannot be in the sole hands of the government and will result in censorship of the press”.

🔴 The News Broadcasters & Digital Association said it will “have a chilling effect on the media” and should be withdrawn.

🔴 The global rights group Access Now said that the rules would render government agencies, as chosen by MeitY, the “final arbiters of truth online”.

🔴 Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar had assured last year that the government-backed fact check body will work in a credible way. “There will be a list of dos’ and don’ts that it will have to adhere to,” he had told The Indian Express.