Thiruvananthapuram: The government has instructed various departments, institutions, PSU and all agencies controlled by the government to actively utilize the government facts inspection division services to fight social media posts intended to disseminate the wrong information about the government and officials.
According to government instructions, the posts must be categorized and must be addressed according to the seriousness of the problem.
In the detailed standard operating procedure arranged by the Head of Secretary of VP JOY in the first week of this month, the government asked all stakeholder departments, district collectors, the head of the public sector and other government-controlled bodies to categorize all social media posts for the “Red Category , green or white “, depending on the urgency or importance of the problem.
“All serious text or photographs that will affect the government or the public must be categorized in the red category.
Such posts must be given priorities and urgent steps to be taken,” he said.
Post under the Red category must be checked, and permission must be taken from the Secretary of the Special Department or Head Secretary and press release or appropriate response must be given.
Those in the green category must be given a response or press release through the Public Relations Department (PRD), while those in the white category do not need to be given a response.
Post that has interests only at the district level will be the responsibility of the district collector concerned.
Every social media post is contrary to the state government, various departments, bodies or institutions, public sector businesses and for government officials, must be scanned because they deal with the facts inspection division, said circular.
All departments and corps must appoint inter-departmental coordination officers who must also function as the facts of Nodal officers in the body.
Details of the appointed department officers, including whatsapp numbers and email addresses, must be shared with the distribution of PRD facts, instructions said.
However, traditional news media, including newspapers and news magazines, television, radio, and their web portals have been excluded from this exercise.
The government on June 22 last year was a distribution of facts under the Information Department and Public Relations to identify false news related to the government and clarified the actual problem through the official website of the government.
The division has also decided to refer to false news that is “serious in nature” for cyberdome police for further action.
However, because there is no special law to take action against such false news, the police can only act only on news that can be charged under the existing legal parts.
Last year, the government has formed a police officer team to take action against those who spread fake news.
The police have used the part of the IT law, Kerala police acts and IPC to order such cases.
“There is no action that allows the police to take legal action against fake news.
If specifically related to something applied by law and need the public to follow it, but if a social media post intentionally disseminates the wrong information about it, as in the case Kerala epidemic regulation, such posts can be ordered based on the law, “A senior official said.