{"id":237049,"date":"2023-04-10T19:45:21","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T14:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=237049"},"modified":"2023-04-11T12:48:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T07:18:00","slug":"new-amendment-rules-on-intermediary-guidelines-amount-to-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/new-amendment-rules-on-intermediary-guidelines-amount-to-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"New amendment rules on intermediary guidelines amount to censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S<\/strong>ource<\/strong>: The post is based on the following articles<\/p>\n

\u201cIntermediary oversight should never be opaque<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>published in the\u00a0Livemint <\/strong>on\u00a010th April 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew amendment rules on intermediary guidelines amount to censorship\u201d <\/b>published in <\/span>The Hindu <\/b>on 10th April 2023<\/b><\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS \u2013 3: role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges.<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: About amendments to IT Rules.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: The government recently notified amendments to Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules.<\/p>\n

About the amendments to IT Rules<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read here:\u00a0IT Ministry notifies body to flag \u2018fake\u2019 content about govt<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What are the concerns associated with amendments to IT Rules?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Lack of clarity<\/strong>: There is a lack of clarity on how the fact-checker would be governed and allow redressal of faulty calls. If \u2018misleading\u2019 posts are banned, then the wide scope for interpretation of the term “misleading” would make it easy for a fact-checker to abuse its authority.<\/p>\n

Further, in \u2018the Information Age\u2019, it is challenging to set the truth apart from falsehood.<\/p>\n

Forgets Arm’s length of government and media<\/strong>: In India, freedom of the press is guaranteed through Article 19 of the Constitution, with media rights and public right to free speech derived from this Article. This means any relationship between the government and the media should be one kept at arm\u2019s length, with the media having sufficient freedom. But these amendments will impact the freedom of the press.<\/p>\n

Create chilling effect<\/strong>: By threatening to remove a platform\u2019s immunity for content that is flagged by a government unit, it is clear that the Union government intends to create a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on the right to speech and expression on online platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: Express View on IT Rules amendments: Government sets itself up as judge, jury and executioner<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What should be done?<\/h2>\n

-All rule-making and rule enforcers must outlive changes in every domain. To ensure that, the fact-checking body should be kept transparent and open to scrutiny.<\/p>\n

-Autonomy for the fact-checker would be an essential condition to address the conflict of interest between the Centre and the media firms. Else, it will act as a another arm of government’s regulatory system.<\/p>\n

-The rule\u2019s basic validity needs to be tested by the judiciary in the light of our right to free speech. The Constitution must prevail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the following articles \u201cIntermediary oversight should never be opaque\u201d\u00a0published in the\u00a0Livemint on\u00a010th April 2023. \u201cNew amendment rules on intermediary guidelines amount to censorship\u201d published in The Hindu on 10th April 2023 Syllabus: GS \u2013 3: role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges. Relevance: About amendments… Continue reading New amendment rules on intermediary guidelines amount to censorship<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10084,10501,10498],"class_list":["post-237049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-information-technology-rules","tag-live-mint","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}