How Google News fought misinformation in India in 2024
From major elections across the globe to conflicts and crises, the year 2024 was critical for the news industry, said Google News on Wednesday.
Acceding to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s demand, IT giant Google has removed the secessionist, anti-India mobile application ‘2020 Sikh Referendum’ from its Play Store, with immediate effect, reports said on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said this app was not available any more on Google Play Store for mobile users in India.
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Singh, who had also urged the Central government to persuade Google in the matter, had asked the Director General of Police to coordinate with Central security agencies to tackle the threat resulting from the launch of the app, created by ‘ICETECH’.
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The app, which sought to ‘liberate Punjab’ was available for free on the google app store. It had asked the people to register themselves to vote in the ‘Punjab Referendum 2020 Khalistan’. A website with the address of www.yes2khalistan.org was also launched for the same purpose.
The Cyber Crime Centre of the Bureau of Investigation of Punjab had moved to get the app removed from the Google Play Store and the website blocked for usage in India.
On November 8, the chief minister had alleged that the app was aimed to divide Sikh community.
“How and why Google allowed such an app to be uploaded by a known radical extremist group in the first place is questionable,” Singh had said, expressing shock at the IT company’s ignorance.
The spokesperson also informed that a notice under Section 79 (3) B of the Information Technology Act was sent to the Google for removal of the mobile application on November 8.
(With input from agencies)
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