Rajeev Chandrasekhar: ‘Open to idea of self-regulatory body to certify trusted fact-checkers’

The Centre is open to the idea of a self-regulatory body that can certify “trusted” fact-checkers to identify online misinformation, and it is not trying to “retrofit a particular organisation” into the process, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar told The Indian Express.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT’s (MeitY’s) latest proposal to empower the Press Information Bureau (PIB) fact-checking unit to police “fake news” on social media platforms and other digital services stemmed from the fact that a “large number” of social media platforms have asked the Centre to create a “standard framework” for fact-checkers, Chandrasekhar said.