Disinformation, misinformation as bad as other digital crime: MoS IT Chandrasekhar

Disinformation and misinformation on the internet rank as other forms of internet criminality and need stricter- than-ever provisions to be dealt with, the minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.

“Our government and agencies have determined that the velocity of misinformation and disinformation can be 8-10, sometimes 20 times faster in reach and significance than normal information,” Chandrasekhar said while addressing The Sydney Dialogue, an annual summit for emerging, critical, cyber and space technologies.

To tackle the increasing menace of disinformation and misinformation, countries must come together to form a “global co-operative framework”, the minister said, adding that countries must treat it as a borderless issue given the nature of the internet was borderless in the modern world.


“A partnership and a collaborative framework of like-minded countries should be the catalyst of redrawing the process of future of technology rather than it being architected in silos driven by independent individual countries,” Chandrasekhar said.

Reiterating his stand that big tech companies, which had over the last decade “started to dominate the internet in big islands of commercial dominance and exploitation”, need to be held accountable to the smallest of users, the minister of state said it was the duty of the government to ensure no user harm, criminality or digital illegality creeps in.

ET had reported on December 6 that the central government considering a proposal to make the internet and social media firms “accountable” for the “algorithms” they deploy to tailor content based on the specific browsing history and profile of users.

The draft laws under the Digital India Act are expected to also contain provisions governing the use of emerging technologies such as advanced quantum computing, artificial intelligence and the metaverse among others, sources said.

“The idea is to prevent misuse of Indian citizens' data. Even if the data is stored in India, it can be misused by highly advanced algorithms. That must be prevented,” a senior government official had told ET.