PIB Fact Check decried by press bodies busted 1160 fake news
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, March 22: ‘PIB Fact Check Unit (FCU)’ has so far busted over 1160 fake news, the government has said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. The ‘Fact Check’ initiative by the government through the Press Information Bureau has faced brickbats from the press bodies, who have accused the government of seeking control of the news reporting in the country.
“The FCU works under FACT model — Find, Assess, Create and Target. It takes cognizance of news both suo-motu and by way of queries sent by citizens,” Ministry of Information and Broadcasting told the Lok Sabha in its written answer during the Question Hour. The government also stated that the FCU has responded to 37,000 actionable queries sent by the citizens.
The Indian Newspapers Society (INS) had previously decried the move of the government undertaking fact check of the news reports and taking down them after they were found to be “fake” according to the government official. The PIB routinely is marking out some of the news items fake.
“A Fact Check Unit has been setup under Press Information Bureau of this Ministry in November, 2019 which takes cognizance of fake news both suo-motu and by way of queries sent by citizens on its portal or through e-mail and whatsapp. The unit responds to the relevant queries with correct information relating to subject concerning the Central Government,” said the Ministry in its reply.
The Ministry further stated that the “Unit also maintains a twitter account @PIBFactcheck and posts cases of fake news, being busted, on the same on regular basis”. The Ministry also stated that the fact checking is done by the Officers of PIB, while maintaining that no separate budget has been allotted for fact checking by PIB.
The government has routinely been taking down YouTube channels, which have been found guilty of peddling fake news. Lok Sabha MPs Syed Imtiaz Jaleel, T. Sumathy and Thamizhachi Thanngapandian in their starred questions had sought to know from the government whether the Government is planning to establish a fact check wing at the Press Information Bureau (PIB), and whether any standard operating procedure/manual to conduct the fact checking has been prepared.
The INS, however, had stated that the PIB is ill-equipped to undertake fact checking of the news items. The press body had also expressed concern that the fact checking move would arm the government to proscribe news items critical of the government.
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