Government s new guidelines for digital news will amount to killing freedom of press: Siddharth Varadarajan
The guidelines mandate a three-tier grievance redressal mechanism to enforce the Code of Ethics that will include self-regulation, followed by self-regulation by independent bodies and lastly the government s oversight mechanism
Siddharth Varadarajan
Criticising the new guidelines issued by the government, mandating digital news platforms in India to be governed by a Code of Ethics and a three-level grievance redress mechanism, Siddharth Varadarajan, Founding Editor of The Wire, said they are an additional burden on digital publishers.
âOn a quick reading, the burdens being placed on publishers of digital news go beyond the basic restrictions on freedom of speech (and thus freedom of the press) envisaged by Article 19 and are, therefore, ultra vires the Constitution. Digital publishers are already subject to Article 19 restrictions and the numerous defamation cases fil