Subhechcha Ganguly 
A petition by satirist Kunal Kamra challenging the amended Information Technology (IT) Rules, which allowed the Central government to establish a fact-checking unit (FCU) to identify false or misleading posts on social media and order direct removal from intermediaries like Facebook and Twitter, was being heard by a division bench of justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale.
The Central government was questioned by the Bombay High Court on Friday about the process it would use to determine whether news or editorials posted online were false or misleading in the event that the content was critical of the government. The meanings of false, fake, and misleading can all be interpreted differently.A petition by satirist Kunal Kamra challenging the amended Information Technology (IT) Rules, which allowed the Central government to establish a fact-checking unit (FCU) to identify false or misleading posts on social media and order intermediaries like Facebook and Twitter to remove those posts, was being heard by a division bench of justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale.
Along with Kamra’s appeal, the modification has also been contested by the Editors Guild of India, Association of Indian Magazines, and News Broadcast and Digital Association.
Senior attorney Navroz Seervai, who represented Kamra, claimed that while not all posts would always cause readers to get alarmed and scared, the revised IT Rules would have a chilling impact on internet users.The bench then requested clarification from the Central government on the meanings of the three terms fake, false, and misleading as well as how the FCU would determine whether information was covered by these terms.”Where does the power come from? Even a civil court might be unable to make a conclusive ruling on truth or untruth, in my opinion.
