India Proposes Social Media Firms Rely On Fact Checking By Government Agencies

The Indian government has proposed making the Press Bureau of India and its other agencies the arbiter of truth on what information is misleading for social media firms and other internet companies as they oversee their users' data in the South Asian market. From a report: The proposal by the Ministry of Electronics and IT came as part of an amendment to the nation's IT rules. In the current draft, the ministry asks social media firms and online gaming companies to undertake due diligence on the content users 'host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share' and ensure that they are not 'patently false and untrue or misleading in nature.' The change proposes that the social media firms and gaming companies use the judgment of the Press Information Bureau, a nodal agency, of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorized by the Central Government for fact checking or 'in respect of any business of the Central Government, by its department in which such business is transacted.' The Press Bureau of India's fact checks have been scrtunized and found to be misleading in some instances by the local media.

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