The Indian Newspaper Society has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar to exclude traditional newspapers from the recently announced Information Technology Rules for social media intermediaries and digital publishers.
INS has said that news websites of traditional papers follow the same stringent guidelines for publication as followed by newspapers, and should be exempt from the new IT Rules.
“The print media in India is responsible and credible, following stringent editing and fact checking norms by Editors every day. Our newspaper digital websites are produced from the newspapers’ newsroom and follow the same guidelines,” INS has said in the letter to PM Modi.
It has further said that exemptions should be provided to newspapers registered with the Registrar of Newspapers in India as they fall under the Press and Registration of Books (PRB) Act.
The PRB Act is a Parliamentary law, and has “stronger legal force” than the IT Rules, which are subordinate legislations under the IT Act, INS added.
It has further said the new Rules amount to “regulatory overreach and is unnecessary to ask the news organisations to follow another set of guidelines, which are meant primarily and exclusively for categories of organisations and intermediaries who are NOT covered by the PRB Act”.
The IT Rules are the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, notified by the government on February 25.
It includes rules related to social media which will be administered by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while those for OTTs and digital media will be administered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Legal experts have previously said that both over the top or streaming service players like Netflix, Anandini Prime, MX Player etc and digital media do not qualify as intermediaries under the IT Act.
Social media firms have also opposed some provisions of the new IT Rules.
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