Double Standards NOT Acceptable: Digital News Media Publishers Likely to Come Under Ambit of Section 69(A) of IT Act | Earth Indian

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led Centre has announced a set of new guidelines to regulate digital news media considered equivalent to TV news channels and newspapers. It has asserted that the new norms have been introduced to ‘establish a soft touch progressive institutional mechanism with a level playing field featuring a Code of Ethics and a three-tier grievance redressal framework for news publishers and OTT platforms on the digital media’. Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed that the rules will empower users of social media, said

Moreover, the government is also planning to bring online, digital news media publishers under the purview of Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act.

In a statement, the government said that there was a demand from all sectors including these two platforms ( news publishers and OTT platforms on the digital media) that there must be some arrangement by which a level playing field can be provided to all the media categories. Thus, under the Information Technology Act, 2000 certain rules are being formulated to provide this institutional mechanism for level playing field.

What is Section 69(A) of the IT Act? 

Section 69(A) of the IT Act allows the Centre to take action against posts  ‘in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states’. The recent banning of certain Chinese Apps was done citing provisions under Section 69A of the IT Act.

Double standards NOT acceptable

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar warned that ‘double standards of social media will not be acceptable.

“Social media is welcome for doing business in India, but such content is coming on social media, which cannot be called civilized in any way. Such complaints came to us a lot. A forum should be there for the problem of social media users. Social media is being used to spread hatred. Terrorists are also using social media. Complaints of wrong use of social media have been coming for many years, there is also the menace of fake news.

By Shivam Urkude || Earth Indian