Naavi.org

Yesterday, Mr Rajeev Chandrashekar announced an amendment to Intermediary rules under section 79 of ITA 2000 regarding curbing of Fake news on the Internet. The proposal suggested that a “Fact Checking Agency” would be set up to assist the identification of fake news. The idea is to enable issue of notice to the internet media flagging the fake news published by them. While the full details of the proposal is yet to be announced, it appeared that the agency will act along with PIB and publish its findings from time to time.

Based on the identification of such fake news by an agency, it is open to the relevant media to either remove the content or ignore it or flag the news with the note that it has been identified as fake news by the Fact Checking Agency (FCA) (As suggested by Naavi earlier way back in the year 2000)

Subsequently if any person affected adversely by the said fake news content takes legal action, the media as an intermediary needs to defend itself without access to the safe harbor provision in the Section 79 of ITA 2000/8. If the Court finds that the information does not create any adverse effect on the complainant, or that the news is not fake but is genuine, there is no effect on the intermediary.

The guideline does not block either the publication of fake news nor forces any information to be withdrawn if the media decides not to.

In this scenario, the Editor’s Guild’s press note stating that

“In effect, the government has given itself absolute power to determine what is fake or not, in respect of its own work, and order take down,”

is a patently false and misleading statement which itself qualifies to be called a “Fake News”.

The Economic Times additionally reports that EGI has also raised concerns about the move in an open letter along with Digipub news India foundation which is a well known group that appears to be part of the George Soros network.

The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) another organization that frequently comes out with negative views about anything done by the MeiTy, says that the “Move will have a chilling effect on the fundamental right to speech and expression, particularly on news publishers, journalists and activists”. This statement also reveals either the mis-reading of the impact or more realistically a deliberate misinformation.

What we need to appreciate is that “Fake News” is like “Virus” and “Malware”. It is part of an “Information Warfare” launched on India and will intensify as we near the next elections. If this is not called out and curbed, the utility of Internet as a medium of trusted information will be destroyed.

The media which is not willing to take preventive action to curb fake news but supports it in the guise of “Freedom of Press” a danger to the democracy. The Editor’s Guild is supporting such a group which is not part of the “Free Press”.

The identification and flagging of fake news will be like anti-virus action. Just as an anti virus company puts out a report of identification of a virus which some may not agree and some may reject or which some may consider only as a “Potentially Unwanted Program but not a malware”, the agency would put out its report with some logic. It can be agreed or rejected. Today even Twitter and YoutTube team does a similar evaluation and many times they wrongly flag a truthful statement and block an account.

Government therefore has all the right to call out that a particular news item is false, baseless and fake according to their analysis. There is no compulsion for any Court to accept the finding They can rely if they want the Zubair’s Alt news more than the Government Fact checking unit.

Hence the Government agency’s report is not the end of the road for any media to put out a news which it believes is true. Hence calling it as “Absolute Power”, “Draconian”, “Causing Chilling effect” etc is a malicious propaganda which should be rejected.

Further, it is open to the Government backed fact check agency to work in collaboration with private sector agencies working with a similar objective and provide a balanced report. Checking a news report whether it is true of false requires some cross verification which could be undertaken by the Fact Checking Agency. Interested persons in the private sector can collaborate and send their views to this agency and share their knowledge to help clean up the Internet.

Towards this purpose, Naavi.org would like to find out a list of such agencies present now. I understand that many of them are from the Soros stable itself but we should be able to find other genuine fact checking private sector agencies who may not be funded by the Soros network. I request knowledgeable persons to send me a list of such known agencies and let us collate this information.

Having shared my views on this aspect and a strong desire that the Government should go ahead and form the Fact Checking agency forthwith, I must admit that I am not confident that the Meity may be mighty enough to take on this “Pro Fake News Freedom Demanding Group”. It could simply walk away and not do anything more.

But given the danger this group poses to the Country, I urge the Government to prove me wrong and take courage and proceed with their plan.

Naavi

Also view this video:

The Government of India has now come out with a new version of the Information
Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 which was first notified on 25th February 2021. On 28th October 2022, there was an amendment issued vide GSR 794(E). On 6th April 2023, there was another amendment vide GSR 275(E) in which “online gaming” was added to the regulations. Today’s consolidated version has one additional provision regarding “Fake News Verification Authority” to be set up by the Government.

In Part II of the notification, under Rule 3(b) the amended subsection (v) now reads as follows:

……The intermediary shall inform its rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement to the user in English or any language specified in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution in the language of his choice and shall make reasonable efforts to cause the user of its computer resource not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that…..

(v) deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature 1[or is identified as fake or false by the fact check unit at the Press Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorised by the Central Government for fact checking or, in respect of any business of the Central Government, by its department in which such business is transacted under the rules of business made under clause (3) of article 77 of the Constitution];”

What this means is that the Government will create a “Fact Check Unit” which will check and declare if any information is fake or false.

The industry therefore need not depend on the private Fact Checking organizations which are controlled by George Soros.

When in doubt the decision of this Fact Checking Unit will determine whether the information is fake and the Intermediary will be losing his Section 79 protection if such news is published and not removed on receiving the knowledge that a news is fake.

This also means that this unit will monitor the private sector fact checking services and give its stamp of approval. It will remove the uncertainty when two fact checking private sector agencies have a difference of opinion.

As could be expected the opposition political parties and the vested media interests have already started their campaign against the provision that it is curbing the “Freedom of Speech”. It should however be remembered that there is “No Right for Spreading Fake News” and hence the objections of the vested interests need to be ignored.

What these media journalists are either unable to understand or are deliberately misrepresenting is that if any fake news is published, it will only mean that Section 79 protection is not available to them and they have to face the law of the land. They are therefore welcome to continue their fake news publication business and face the law.

Crying that this is curbing their freedom of speech is itself a patently false news and will render these media vehicles susceptible to legal action if the intention is to violate any law.

We await the implementation of this system and a link to the content where PIB will maintain the list of reported fake news along with their views. Alternatively we need to see if PIB will start a help center type of service where a query can be raised by public to be answered by the PIB unit asap.

Copy of the Revised Intermediary Guidelines with amendments is available here

Naavi

The Intermediary Guidelines covering the Gaming Intermediaries which had been released for public comments has now been notified. This will be an amendment to the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media EThics Code of 25th February 2021.

Copy of the guidelines is available here.

The guidelines defines an “Online Game” as ” a game that is offered on the Internet and is accessible by a user through a computer resource or an intermediary. The “Online real money game” is defined as an online game where the user makes a deposit in cash or kind with the expectation of earning winnings on that deposit.

Additionally “Internet” for the purpose of this notification means the combination of computer facilities and electromagnetic transmission media, and related equipment and software, comprising the interconnected worldwide network of computer networks that transmits information based on a protocol for controlling such transmission.”

An online gaming self regulatory body will require to be established and should provide a verifiable mark to the relevant platform for “Permissible online real money game”.

The system of self regulation is similar to what Naavi.org had recommended as “Intermediary Dispute Resolution Policy ” for all Section 79 guidelines.

The Government reserves its rights to introduce similar regulations even in the case of online game other than online real money game in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India ..etc.

The guidelines will come to force 3 months after atleast three Self Regulatory body has been established.

The real impact of the regulations on some of the popular gaming platforms need to be assessed. The industry may delay the setting up of self regulatory body to postpone the applicability of the guidelines and this could be a loophole deliberately kept in the guidelines.

Instead, the Government should have provided a time line of say 6 months for the setting up of the self regulatory bodies failing which the “Grievance Appellate Committee” of the Ministry should take over the responsibility envisaged for the self regulatory body till the formation of such bodies.

Naavi

This is a continuation of the previous article “The Great Data Robbery in India…64 crore data sets…weaponized for the next election...”

We have seen many data breaches from Hospitals. Banks, Payment Gateways etc. Most of these are targeted at financial crimes and result in ransomware attacks or direct phishing attacks. But what has been unearthed now in Cyberabad appears different. This data heist is not limited to financial objectives.

The classification of the data into different categories is really intriguing and raises alarm. The catch has been of a person who is said to be operating through a website “InspireWebz”.

We can stumble upon www.inspirewebz.com which is a website which is marketing several “Data Extractor Softwares”. Whether the arrested person is a user of this these tools or the owner of this website is not known. But the data extractor tools marketed in this website are clearly tools that can be used to commit what a data protection law would consider as “Objectionable Extraction”.

We are aware that DPDPB 2022 considers extraction of data from publicly available data space does not require specific consent. However, systematic marketing of these tools is facilitating criminals and hence the website should be considered as part of a “Conspiracy” to commit Cyber Crimes.

From the initial indications, the person arrested by Cyberabad police could have bought all the available tools in this website and later filtered and classified the data into different categories.

The press report referred to in the earlier article lists about 109 categories besides 25 state categories.

The classifications state wise had the following information.

The state-wide classification read along with the profession wise classification indicate multiple mis-use possibilities.

It could be used for all types of Cyber Crimes and also for structured AI assisted communication including sending deep fake videos to influence the free choice of the public during the next elections on the lines of what Cambridge Analytica was accused of.

It is time for data protection and cyber security community to debate how this threat should be viewed. Is it a simple cyber crime? or Cyber Terrorism?. Is it only an “Attempt” or an “Executed crime”? What are the labilities of all those who might have purchased the different packs of software? How have they used it? By this time all buyers should have been raided by NIA and records should have been collected on their activities.

Naavi

Following was a press note issued by Cyberbad police on a recent data theft investigation which is considered the largest data theft in the world.

Copy of the Press note

We shall discuss this in greater details in the follow up article.

What is important to note is that the seizure of the data indicates collection from different sources in a systematic manner and organization of the data according to location in different states, practice of different professions, holders of different credit/debit cards, Defence personnel, etc.

The systematic organization indicates that the data could be used for different purposes.

The statewide classification indicates that this was structured could be used for the election campaign purpose also.

This is a classic indication of how information can be weaponized for nefarious purposes.

Hence this is a bigger scandal than the Cambridge Analytica. It involves multiple states and perhaps an attempt to destabilize the country.

We donot know if this investigation leads to George Soros funding or PFI activities. The ramifications would be beyond Telengana and hence this needs a very serious consideration and investigation at the national level.

We congratulate the Cyberbad Police for their excellent work. However in view of the multiple state’s involvement and the potential use of the data for Cyber Crimes and also for manipulation of public opinion for political purpose, I request NIA to consider this as “Cyber Terrorism” under Section 66F of ITA 2000 and take over the investigation.

Naavi