The spread of coronavirus in India is rapidly increasing with eachpassing day, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology reiterated advisory to all social media intermediaries — Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, ShareChat and Twitter to control the spread of misinformation on coronavirus pandemic.
Showing their sense of responsibility, such intermediaries have been showing on their platforms the links to the WHO’s dos and don’ts regarding the virus, and how to contain its spread. As per a statement released by the ministry, social media platforms are intermediaries as defined under section 2(1)(w) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and are required to follow due diligence as prescribed in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules notified under section 79 of the IT Act.”Social media platforms must inform their users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that may affect public order in any way,” the statement read.
The advisory further urged the platforms to initiate awareness campaigns for the users not to upload or circulate any false news or misinformation concerning coronavirus which is likely to create panic among the public and disturb public order and social tranquillity. It also asked to take immediate action to disable or remove such content hosted on their platforms on a priority basis and promote the dissemination of authentic information related to coronavirus as far as possible.
Officials of MEITY said that social media intermediaries operational in India have been introducing several measures to curb the menace of fake news and prevent misinformation in India. Twitter has assured that it would remove or block from viewing any tweets that could cause harm by spreading any misinformation about coronavirus. Facebook-owned WhatsApp started depicting “forwarded” or multiple forward indicators on messages circulated several times across the internet, Facebook itself has tied up with some independent fact-checkers to let people know that a piece of news or information that has been shared by independent fact auditors might be wrong.