NEW DELHI, Jun 9: Government’s takedown action on social media posts is restricted to only deep fake content with no clampdown on genuine content creation, Union minister for electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday, debunking allegations of censorship.
Recently, there have been several claims on removal of online videos of YouTube based channels. Online movement entity Cockroach Janata Party leader Abhijeet Dipke has also claimed that his video supporting a victim of wrong assessment by CBSE was removed on government request.
The minister debunked claims that genuine protest videos are being removed from social media platforms.
“Absolutely not. Wherever these fake videos are, it is a duty, it is a responsibility for us, for the government to make sure that if any deep fake video is propagating false, actually false news, then it has to be removed,” Vaishnaw told PTI.
He said the society is built on trust between institutions and asserted that trust has to be strengthened.
“To strengthen the trust, the belief in what you see, whether that is true or false, whether that is genuine or deep fake, that belief has to be strengthened through various technological methods, and that is what we are doing. In terms of per capita creation of content, if you look at it, it is not even a fraction of the content that is created, which is basically deep fake and harmful for the society which is building it,” the minister said.
Vaishnaw said the government is of the view that there is a need for a new law on fake and false information, and it will work on this along with the industry.
When asked about the status of the IT rules amendment, the minister said that there is a need to remove fake news, irrespective of who generates it. The amendment extends the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s oversight mechanism, blocking and takedown powers to users who are not registered as publishers but post or share news and current affairs content online.
“The question is very simple. Whether fake news should be allowed to stay on social media or should not? Who generates the fake news was never a point of conversation. If fake news is generated by a newspaper or by any other person, if it is fake news, it must be taken out,” Vaishnaw said. (PTI)
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