Govt’s fact-check unit is not for censoring journalism: IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The Centre’s upcoming unit to fact-check content related to the government on social media is not about “censoring journalism” and will have no impact on reportage, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Friday.

During an online discussion, he said that it was “not true” that the government-appointed unit, which press freedom advocates strongly oppose, was aimed at “censoring journalism”.

The Indian Express had earlier reported that the fact check unit, as proposed in the Information Technology Rules, 2021, is likely to have four members — a representative from the IT Ministry and one from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, a “media expert” and a “legal expert”.