Overview

• The draft bill would criminalize online misinformation with jail terms of two to seven years and allow fines for posting or sharing content deemed false, misleading or harmful.
• It establishes special courts and a new regulatory authority empowered to order content takedowns, blocks or mandatory labels without a dedicated appeal process.
• Digital rights groups SFLC.in and the Internet Freedom Foundation have condemned the bill’s vague definitions and absence of appellate safeguards for threatening free speech.
• Observers caution the measure could conflict with India’s federal IT Act and a Bombay High Court ruling that struck down similar fact-checking powers under constitutional free-speech protections.
• Karnataka’s IT minister says the proposal remains preliminary and will undergo inter-departmental and public consultations before formal drafting.