Although Snap, Twitter and Jio haven’t officially confirmed to MCA to join them while others like Google, Meta, ShareChat and Koo have, most have given in-principle approval.
MCA president Bharat Gupta met Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, on Thursday afternoon and has submitted a letter of intent to the ministry, proposing to constitute an industry-supported self-regulatory organisation (SRO) in India, which would serve as one of the nodal bodies for Indian fact checkers.
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This comes after the government turned down the industry’s request to continue using fact-checkers with international certifications such as those of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).
“Instead of IFCN, a foreign body certifying who will be the factcheckers, there should be an Indian body. We told them that if they can agree on the contours of an Indian body, the government would be more than happy to support it,” the official said. Rajneil Kamath, VP, MCA told ET, “We have expressed our intention to create such a body. We will be working based on the inputs and suggestions we get from stakeholders for the structure.”
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“We have reached out to many major intermediaries, including bigtech and Indian intermediaries, and have received support from some and are expecting support from others as well. Once we have an idea of who all are supporting us, then we will take the next steps,” he said. The MCA is a section 8, not-forprofit company. “We went public in March 2022. The MCA came together to combat misinformation and work on media literacy and training, building tools to aid in fact checking and working on community and advocacy efforts,” he said.
Rajneesh Jaswal, Head, Legal and Policy, Koo, told ET, “Today, factchecking services for platforms are substantially paywalled by private entities, disproportionately affecting younger indigenous platforms and their millions of users”.
To ensure fact-checking remains free from biases, regulatory supervision would be highly beneficial, he said. Industry sources close to the development said this industry collective will identify ways to fund this SRO and will create principles of how Indian fact checkers will be accredited. Once operational, the Indian affiliation and certification agency will have the power to approve or deny requests from media and internet intermediaries to be called factcheckers.
Fact-checkers approved by the industry-regulated body can then fact-check information published for or against private entities on social media intermediaries, a senior ministry official told ET.
“Like the government-regulated body for checking misinformation, these agencies can also undertake fact-checking. And the process followed is similar. If an intermediary believes that the content on their platform is genuine, they can refuse to take it down. But then, the protection under (section) 79 (of the IT Act) goes away. And the aggrieved party can take the intermediary to court,” the official said.
Establishing an indigenous, non-profit fact-checking apex body will aid in local capacity development, collaboration and action together with international organisations, Jaswal of Koo said.
“We are collaborating to create such a body in India and a lot of work still remains. As and when the governance charter and other modalities are ready, an announcement will be made,” Jaswal added.
In a statement, the MCA said, it met minister Chandrasekhar on Thursday afternoon after his announcement on the new IT policy and made a presentation apprising him of the alliance’s efforts in combating misinformation, spreading awareness about the harms of misinformation and creating collaborations in order to create a healthy information culture in society.
“We have received in-principle support for MCA’s efforts from some of the major intermediaries. The MCA will adopt a multi-stakeholder consultative approach and work on developing principles and standards for independent, non-partisan and transparent fact checking and establish the SRO. We are committed to creating an open, safe and trusted internet for all,” it said.
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