{"id":288173,"date":"2024-03-23T19:20:57","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T13:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=288173"},"modified":"2024-03-23T19:20:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T13:50:57","slug":"free-speech-check-unit-government-being-judge-jury-executioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/free-speech-check-unit-government-being-judge-jury-executioner\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Speech Check Unit – Government being judge, jury & executioner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source <\/strong>– This post on Free Speech Check Unit-Government being judge, jury & executioner <\/strong>has been created based on the article \u201cExpress View on SC stay on Fact Check Unit: Judge, jury, executioner<\/strong>\u201d published in \u201cThe Indian Express<\/strong>\u201d on 23 March 2024.<\/p>\n

UPSC Syllabus – GS Paper 2 <\/strong>– Indian Constitution – Historical Underpinnings, Evolution and Statutory, Regulatory and various Quasi-judicial Bodies.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>– The Supreme Court has recently stayed a government notification setting up a Fact Checking Unit (FCU).<\/p>\n

Context<\/strong>– Government of India has notified the PIB\u2019s Fact-Check Unit (PIB-FCU) under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) as the fact check unit of the Central Government.<\/p>\n

What is Fact-check unit?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Establishment<\/strong>-It was established under the Press Information Bureau in November 2019.<\/p>\n

Objective<\/strong>-To act as a deterrence to creators and disseminators of fake news and misinformation.<\/p>\n

What are the issues with setting up of fact-check Unit by the Government of India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

1) \u00a0Violative of freedom of speech and expression<\/strong>– There are concerns that PIB\u2019s fact-check unit and its power to censor content may have a chilling effect on free speech and expression provided under Art 19(1)(a). Democratic politics is an open contestation of ideas and personalities.<\/p>\n

2) Suppressing dissent-<\/strong> It is not required to provide written orders detailing its reasoning for taking certain actions. This provision can be used to suppress inconvenient journalism, dissent and disagreement.<\/p>\n

3) Violation of separation of power-<\/strong> As it plays the role of judge, jury and executioner, it usurps the role of the courts in dealing with fake news. This is violative of the principle of separation of power.<\/p>\n

4) Ambiguity on definitions<\/strong>– There is lack of a clear definition of what types of information qualify as \u2018fake or false or misleading \u2018. This lack of clarity creates ambiguity and can lead to arbitrary censorship by the government.<\/p>\n

Read more- PIB\u2019s Fact-Check Unit<\/a><\/p>\n

Question for practice<\/strong><\/p>\n

How can Fact Checking Unit suppress freedom of speech and expression?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source – This post on Free Speech Check Unit-Government being judge, jury & executioner has been created based on the article \u201cExpress View on SC stay on Fact Check Unit: Judge, jury, executioner\u201d published in \u201cThe Indian Express\u201d on 23 March 2024. UPSC Syllabus – GS Paper 2 – Indian Constitution – Historical Underpinnings, Evolution… Continue reading Free Speech Check Unit – Government being judge, jury & executioner<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"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":[212,10500,225],"class_list":["post-288173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","tag-polity","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288173","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\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}