NBDA: Amendment to the Information Technology Rules Withdrawal: NBDA

News broadcasters and the Digital Association (NBDA) on Monday called for the draft amendments to the IT rules to be withdrawn, arguing that it gives the government “absolute and unfettered” power to meddle with the free expression rights of media outlets without any censorship. In a statement here, NBD said the proposed amendments would directly affect news media as moderators may be coerced or directed by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) or any other agency to remove allegedly malicious news content without following normal principles. justice.

Last week, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) released draft revised amendments to the IT Rules (the Medium Guidelines and Code of Digital Media Ethics) 2021 that seek to direct social media platforms to remove news or information identified as “fake” by a fact-finding unit. Facts in PIB.

“The amendment to the aforementioned rule gives the Press Information Bureau (PIB) and the central government excessive powers to regulate digital news content without any scrutiny,” NBD said, urging the ministry to withdraw the amendment.

She said that there is enough legislation, regulations and legislative bodies to regulate the news media and that such an amendment would lead to excessive regulation by the government which is “undesirable and unacceptable”.

“This kind of censorship is not provided for in the Constitution,” the NBDA said.

The Editors’ Guild of India, the Press Association and India’s DigiPub Foundation have already urged the government to “strip off” the edit.