Centre seeks tough action from Google, Twitter, Facebook on fake news

In a meeting with Google, Twitter and Facebook, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) officials slammed the tech giants for not proactively removing what they described as fake news on their platforms and asked them to take immediate action.

The officials said that the inaction from the tech giants on fake news was forcing the Indian government to order content takedowns. This in turn is having a negative impact on the image of the government who is drawing a flak from within and outside saying it was suppressing free expression.

However, the officials did not issue an ultimatum to the companies at the meeting. The meeting was a follow-up to the I&B Ministry’s use of ’emergency powers’ in December and January to order the blocking of 55 channels on Google’s YouTube platform and some Twitter and Facebook accounts.

During the meeting, the government official said that the channels were promoting ‘fake news’ or ‘anti-India’ content and that the disinformation was being spread by accounts based in neighbouring Pakistan.
The officials have asked Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and Koo to share data, if any, on action taken so far against such content on their platforms.