In March, the government said in response to a parliamentary question that the IT Act was in place to 'regulate misuse of social media'. The specific question, which Minister of State for MeitY KJ Alphons answered, asked if the government was coming up with any policy to 'check circulation of fake news' on social media. The government said the same thing in two Rajya Sabha answers. This position — that the IT Act is a sufficient legal safeguard against fake news — has changed in the last few months considerably. For one, the I&B Ministry set up a committee to regulate online content in what they said was an effort to curb misinformation and fake news. While that committee's future is uncertain at best, the government has been addressing fake news concerns on other fronts. A series of lynchings, many based on false information about subjects based on WhatsApp forwards, led the government to pull up WhatsApp on what the company is doing to stop the spread of such fake news. WhatsApp responded by putting out full-page ads on newspapers warning people not to fall for fake news, and placing restrictions on message forwarding in the app. Fake news in the Parliament The first mention of fake news in the parliament came in April 2017, when MP Dr Sanjay Jaiswal asked a question on WhatsApp. Specifically, he asked "whether the Government is aware of the serious implications arising due to spread of fake news via private WhatsApp networks". That was the…
