Tackling Fake News

Amendments proposed by the government for a notification issued in 2011 under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, have attracted stiff competition from the industry-led via WhatsApp. A coalition of 31 civil society and era specialists has also submitted a joint letter to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology mentioning that the proposed amendments “might erode digital safety and undermine the exercise of human rights globally”. Section seventy-nine exempts intermediaries from legal responsibility in certain cases and states that they will not be liable for any third-party data, information, or verbal exchange hyperlink made available via them.
The committee has raised the following objections:
Implementation of traceability of messaging might weaken the encryption of structures, inclusive of WhatsApp, and undermine digital protection and consumer privacy.
The recommendations could “empower the authorities to request data and assistance” and erode human rights globally.
It has additionally suggested to the government that, since the version code of behavior for elections is operational, the government needs to withdraw the amendments. The government seems pressured about whether or not it is violating the code of conduct of the Election Commission.
It needs to be said, however, that the objections raised by using the industry aren’t based totally on sound technical or prison grounds and deserve to be rejected outright. Also, given the upcoming elections, the government should go ahead and issue the notification.
Legally speaking, the notification does not amend Section 79 of ITA 2000. It is an administrative tenet that suggests a few tips for “due diligence”. Due diligence is the key to having a defense for the middleman so that it isn’t always held responsible for misuse of its platform, provided that there’s no abetment, negligence, or violation of the law.
The change was required as the earlier notification of 2011 did no longer have social media businesses as its awareness for outlining due diligence. It seems that these groups are firing their objections at the shoulders of privacy and freedom of expression, and are in reality trying to save the government from curtailing the unfold of fake news.
The motives given by way of the consortium to oppose the notification include the incapability of the intermediaries to perceive “illegal acts” and incapacity to take away the objectionable content expeditiously when notified.
We need to understand that “fake information” is commercially beneficial to the intermediaries, and there may be a vested interest in the generation and spread of it. There is, consequently, no commitment to get rid of faux information, and competition is mounted simply because of this commercial self-interest. If this tendency isn’t always checked, accepted as true within social media can be lost, and Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp become part of “E-Yellow Journalism”.
It is time social media organizations display more responsibility for the coolest of society and assist the conflict in resolving conflicts related to fake information. The first step in this course is to stop the false propaganda against the proposed amendments. The suggestions prescribe that intermediaries take measures to preserve the “traceability” of messages using capturing and preserving the message originating information. This does not require the decryption of the frame of the message in services like WhatsApp.
Technically, the metadata of a message has constantly been part of the message header, and the modern requirement is not new. Earlier, message headers were recording the message byte size, and it is anticipated that this would now get replaced with the aid of a “Message Hash Value”. This has no impact on privacy and digital security as alleged with the aid of those groups. In truth, some of the intermediaries are at gift imposing additional technical measures to cover the originating data with the aid of issuing proxy IP deals to their customers. Though this is justified under “privacy”, it’s miles open assistance to criminals to guard them against being detected by law enforcement agencies while a crime offense is being committed. This, in reality, makes such intermediaries “accomplices” in crime.
If the common sense of the expert institution that the collection of metadata compromises privacy is frequent, then there may be an objection to keeping log statistics of any activity, either on the net or at the computer. This can’t be accepted, and the rights of law enforcement are recognized even in privacy laws.
In the recent Pulwama attack, it was discovered that “virtual SIMs” was used by terrorists. These issuers are “intermediaries” who provided the provider to the regulation-breakers to cover their identity while committing crimes. Thus, there may be a need to cause them to respond.
Another objection raised by way of the intermediaries is that “the hints are too indistinct and it isn’t possible for the tech enterprise to recognize what’s unlawful”. Ignorance of regulation can’t be used as an excuse to keep away from the constitutional obligation to assist the authorities of the day in maintaining law and order.