After newspapers, press groups, and opposition leaders criticised the central government’s recent amendment to the IT Rules 2021, journalists joined the chorus, describing the amendment as “censorship”.
The amendment, notified on April 6, says social media companies and other intermediaries must take down content deemed fake by a government fact-check unit. To be precise, intermediaries are not permitted to “host, display, upload, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information in respect to any business of the central government that is identified as fake or false or misleading by such fact-check unit”.
