The State Deputizing Citizens to Discipline Digital News Media: The Case of the IT Rules 2021 in India

Abstract

This article examines a recent regulation in India called the “Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021.” The Rules allow for filing of “grievances” – defined quite broadly – against digital news outlets, who are required to resolve them within a specific time frame or face legal action. This article analyzes the government’s press conference transcripts, PR materials, statements to the UN and in courts to articulate the purported rationale for the Rules: curbing fake news and ensuring that the press is accountable to the public. However, analysis of the meta-journalistic discourse shows how the Rules institutionalize online vigilantism in the name of “accountability.” These findings are contextualized by discussing the Indian media system and the related regulatory regime; and the rise of Hindu nationalism and online vigilantism. More broadly, this article illustrates how online harassment of journalists can involve a combination of grassroots mobilization and state-backed efforts; it underlines the urgency of studying how the “fake news” crisis is being instrumentalized to curb press freedom in the Global South; and it illustrates how press freedom assumes different meanings across a news media landscape segmented by language and geography, as in the case of India.