India: Issued MeitY order establishing Press Information Bureau as fact check unit to counter misinformation on Government policies

On 20 March 2024, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a notification to the Press Information Bureau's (IPB) Fact Check Unit (FCU) requiring to flag misinformation about the central government under the provisions of the sub-clause (v) of sub-rule (1) of rule 3 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The FCU is mandated to counter misinformation on Government policies, initiatives, and schemes, actively monitoring, detecting, and countering disinformation campaigns. If the unit flags information as fake news related to the central government, the platform intermediaries are required to remove that content.