After Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s intervention, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry has withdrawn
the proposed guidelines on fake news and accreditation of journalists. The
ministry had proposed new rules yesterday that saw massive outrage.
The proposed move sought to
put in place provisions to suspend journalists even mere on the complaints of a
fake news and the irony was, the journalists had to remain so till any
conclusion of the news alleged to be fake. And a third time publication of fake
news invited permanent cancellation of accreditation as well. The bill
certainly contained provisions against journalists that could have been
misused.
But if we go by the facts, we
know that accredited journalists and mainstream media institutions are not at
core of fake news prevalence but it is largely driven by tech giants like
Facebook, Google, their associated networks and other such sites. The new rules
never talked about it and about the non-journalists who really spin and twist
news items on these platforms that have raised many international controversies
like spread of fake news in the US presidential election or France’s
allegations that Russia tried to affect the French elections through internet
last year.
The threat has been so
critical that many countries have started making laws against fake news and the
collaborators behind them, especially after the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica
leakage controversy in the US presidential polls that has set the world on
storm.
GERMANY: Germany enacted a
law last year for social media outfits that asks them to remove fake news from
their platforms within 24 hours. A delay is fined with upto $61.5m.
IRELAND: In December, the
country introduced a bill to handled fake news. The Online Advertising and
Social Media (Transparency) Bill 2017 is aimed at ensuring integrity of online
media and targets the prevailing undemocratic practices happening there.
UNITED KINGDOM: UK is
planning to treat entities like Facebook and Google as publishers and not just
as information sources so that the regulations around them can be tightened.
Though UK still has no specific law to deal with fake news, its Prime Minister
Theresa May has warned the biggies of the social media to face fines if they
fail and a legal solution may well be in offing.
FRANCE: On January 3 this
year, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he was going to introduce
a new law to curb fake news through social media content as much of it was
affecting the flow of societies and democracies. His pre-election campaign was
also largely affected by it.
ITALY: Italy is running
programmes to make its citizens aware of conspiracy theories and fake news
online. The same has also part of the high-school curriculum in the country.
And the country is taking help of sites like Facebook as well in this effort.
EUROPEAN COUNCIL: The
Cambridge Analytica led Facebook controversy has forced the European Council to
take precautionary measures. Warning that issues like profile leaks from
Facebook can ‘subvert our democratic systems’ and the election to the European
elections can really be a target of a massive Eurosceptic disinformation run,
the council is working on to legislate a law.
UNITED STATES: Fake news has
been made a globally known term by US President Donald Trump as he terms most
of controversial coverage about him in US media as fake news. And this time
around also, the country is in the middle of the storm with the
Facebook-Cambridge Analytica controversy.
The US Congress has summoned
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for clarification and as the US, for long, has
dealt with the phenomenon, with provisions of its Federal Communication
Commission for fake news on television and radio broadcasts, the related social
media releases may soon be defined as well if they indeed cause much public
harm.
INDONESIA: In January,
Indonesia launched a cyber security agency to aim religious extremism and fake
news on online platforms. The country took the step as more than half of its
population is now internet users and the government needed a measure to ensure
cyber security.
MALAYSIA: Yesterday,
Malaysia’s parliament passed a law to deal with fake news. The bill though
criticised by many has a fine of $128,000 and prison term of upto six years. It
covers digital publications and social media outfits and targets collaborators
who use wholly or partly false data to publish stories.
MALAYSIA: Malaysia’s
parliament on April 2 passed a law prohibiting fake news that critics fear will
be abused to silence dissent ahead of a general election. Despite warnings such
a law would lead Malaysia closer to dictatorship, the bill was approved 123 to
64 after a heated debate. The bill originally proposed a 10-year jail term and
a fine of up to 500,000 ringgit ($128,000) for offenders, but the approved
legislation sets the maximum prison sentence at six years.
SINGAPORE: Singapore
conducted a survey where more than 90% of its residents opinionated for
stronger laws to tackle fake news and the country is expected to come up with
the one soon, in 2018, as informed by K Shanmugam, its Law Minister. Singapore
is a country of high internet density and its people are from various races and
religions, so the country needs a stronger law even more, Mr Shanmugam said.
Now, let’s see what India
really does on this fake news spread where a guideline to control accredited
journalists and mainstream media cannot really work.
©SantoshChaubey