India top court puts on hold unit for fact-checking online content about govt

NEW DELHI: India’s top court on Thursday put on hold a new government-appointed unit created to fact-check online content about the government as part of recent changes to the country’s IT rules.

The changes, made in April last year, dictated that social media platforms make “reasonable efforts” to not “publish, share or host” information about the government that the unit deemed to be “fake, false or misleading”.

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The changes drew criticism from civil society, opposition groups and media groups, who said they were a threat to freedom of speech.

But the government dismissed the concerns saying fact checking would be done in a credible manner.