A Bill for Big Brother to weaponise speech

Towards the end of June, it was reported that the government of Karnataka was planning to introduce a bill for the prohibition of “misinformation and fake news”.

- Gautam Bhatia

Shortly after that, the media accessed an unofficial version of the proposed Bill. This Bill is not, admittedly, the first attempt in India to prohibit “fake news”. Two years ago, the central government amended the Information Technology rules, seeking to proscribe news about the central government that was “fake, false, or misleading”. This attempt was eventually struck down as unconstitutional by the Bombay High Court. If this version of the Karnataka Bill is enacted, however, then it will go even beyond the unconstitutional IT Rules amendment, and cause a serious chilling effect on the freedom of speech.

The issue, however, is that the line between “fact” and “opinion” is nowhere near as clear as the Bill would have us believe. This is especially true in contexts of political speech or public dissent - contexts where the freedom of speech is particularly important. Consider, for example, a situation where I call a particular politician a “thief”. While I may be using the word “thief” to refer to their ethical and moral character, or their failure to keep their political promises, the regulatory committee can easily take my statement as a factually untrue accusation that the politician has committed the crime of theft. This is not a problem that can be solved by precise legislative drafting; it is something embedded in the very manner in which we wield language, and relate to each other in the world.