The Editors Guild of India (EGI) on Friday said it was disturbed by the amendments notified to the IT Rules by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

The amendments give the ministry the authority to constitute a “fact checking unit” with sweeping powers to determine what is “fake or false” with respect to “business of the Central Government”, and order to take down intermediaries.

“The Editors Guild of India is deeply disturbed by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023 (IT Amendment Rules, 2023), which have been notified by the MeitY on April 6,” the EGI said in a statement on Friday.

“MeitY has introduced amendments to the IT Rules that will have deeply adverse implications for press freedom in the country,” the EGI noted.

“As per the new rules that have been notified, the ministry has given itself the power to constitute a “fact checking unit”, which will have sweeping powers to determine what is “fake or false or misleading”, with respect to “any business of the Central Government”, and with instructions to ‘intermediaries’ (including social media intermediaries, Internet Service Providers, and other service providers), to not host such content,” the Guild observed.

“In effect, the government has given itself absolute power to determine what is fake or not, in respect of its own work, and order take down. The so-called ‘fact checking unit’ can be constituted by the ministry, by a simple ‘notification published in the Official Gazette’,” the EGI contended.

The guild lamented that there was no mention of what will be the governing mechanism for such a fact-checking unit, the judicial oversight, the right to appeal, or adherence to the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court of India in Shreya Singhal v Union of India case, with respect to take down of content or blocking of social media handles.

“All this is against the principles of natural justice, and akin to censorship,” the Guild said.

“What is further surprising is that the ministry has notified this amendment, without any meaningful consultation that it had promised after it withdrew the earlier draft amendments it had put out in January 2023. These had given sweeping powers to the Press Information Bureau (PIB), which was universally criticized by media organisations across the country, including the Guild,” the statement said.

Hence, the EGI termed the ministry’s notification of such draconian rules regrettable.

The Guild concluded by urging the ministry to withdraw the notification and conduct consultations with media organisations and press bodies before notifying amendments to the IT Rules in future.