Category: Freedom of Speech

Fake News and Its Follies

Posted on by Vishal Rakhecha

fake-news

Fake news may seem to be very innocuous and in fact might not seem to cause much harm to anyone or have any real-world consequences. Fake news is a phenomenon where a few individuals, sites and online portals create or/and share pieces of information either completely false or cherry-picked from real incidents with the intention to mislead the general public or gain publicity. We all have at least once received a message on WhatsApp groups or on Twitter or on Facebook saying things like – Jana Gana Mana received ‘best national anthem’ award from UNESCO, or that the new Rs 2000 notes have a GPS enabled chip, or that Narendra Modi has been selected as the Best PM in the world by UNESCO. These apparently harmless rumours have done little more than made Twitter trolls target unsuspecting individuals, sometimes even well-known people.

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A Victory, and Moving Forward – TRAI Consultations on OTTs

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

Last week, the Supreme Court of India in its judgment in the case of Shreya Singhal and Ors. v Union of India has decreed S. 66A of the Information Technology Act unconstitutional in its entirety, and at the same drastically restricted the ambit of Ss. 69A and 79 by reading into them the jurisprudence of Art. 19(1) (a) and 19(2). It has at the same time struck down the notice-and-takedown regime, replacing it with a system with more oversight, as we will see in following posts.

We will shortly be coming out with separate, detailed posts on each of the separate dimensions of the judgement, including but not restricted to the Free Speech issues, the Intermediary Liability issues, and the Website blocking concerns. But before we start on to that, a short word of caution.

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Facebook, 'Internet.org' and the Ignored Questions of Civil Liberties

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

(Image Source: https://flic.kr/p/4W8mW)

 Earlier yesterday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg met with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad (who curiously also holds the Ministry of Law and Justice portfolio). The Facebook CEO was in New Delhi on the 9th and 10th of October for the Internet.org summit.

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Cross Media Ownership in India: Cause for Concern?

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

The following post is by Shashank Atreya, a student of School of Law, Christ University, Bangalore. He is a founding member of the Committee on Public Policy and Governance, School of Law, Christ University, and has headed research panels drafting suggestions to the Parliament Standing Committee and Law Commission. Shashank is a Media Law enthusiast, and vouches for net neutrality. He brings us a detailed analysis  on TRAI’s recent suggestions on Cross Media Ownership, which formed part of it’s recommendations to the Law Commission of India. 

The media plays an important and multiple roles in society. The most obvious of these are collection and dissemination of information, communication and entertainment among the people. Further, through its reach to the people the media also transmits social and cultural values and serves as a medium of education. Thus by providing information the media can inspire and generate political social ideas and aid in shaping policy agenda and priorities.

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