EC To Take Active Role In Fact-Checking, To Launch Online Initiative Soon To Curb Misinformation

Lok Sabha Election 2024: The Election Commission of India held a press conference on Saturday to announce the polling dates for this year. During the press conference, the Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, talked about how big of a pain point for the EC is misinformation. Kumar said, “On social media in democracy, there is full freedom to criticise anybody including criticising us. But, you cannot, should not be allowed to create fake news which is not based on facts because it can disturb the public order.” 

The CEC informed the people of some of the new steps that the EC has taken to counter the spread of fake news and misinformation. He said, “Under Section 69 and 79 (3) (B) of the IT Act, the authorised authority of each state is empowered to ask for the takedown of any social media post. In almost all states, authorised officials have been appointed or are being appointed.”

He added that in each district the EC has done a thorough training for the officials to inform them about the steps to handle this menace. He also said, “All of our entire machinery will react to whatever is coming by facts. We will try and join the issue instead of being in the background if someone is trying to do a fake kind of narrative which is disturbing the level playing field, which is disturbing the public order, which is not based on facts and which has crossed the line of criticism. We will also launch something called ‘Myth Vs Reality’ very soon on our website to educate the people about what is myth and what is reality.”

Kumar also asked the people to be a bit cautious before spreading such news in the market. 

Google Joins Hands With ECI To Combat Misinformation

Recently, Google joined hands with ECI to prevent the spread of false information, promote authorised content and label AI-generated data during the upcoming elections.

Google in a blog post said, “We are collaborating with ECI to enable people to easily discover critical voting information on Google Search – such as how to register and how to vote – in both English and Hindi.”