Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai, who courted controversy earlier this week after his remarks on controlling media, clarified on Saturday that what he meant was controlling the spread fake news. People run fake news, comment on leaders and misrepresent Central government’s policies in new media space.
"In the new media space, people run fake news, comment on leaders and misrepresent Centre's policies. It will be controlled now as intermediaries have to declare the person running it, that's what I meant," Annamalai was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The former IPS officer said while traditional media is more mature, the new media is irresponsible in putting out the news.
“They will have a problem once this Act (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) comes into effect,” he said.
Annamalai had stirred up a row on July 14 after he said the media in Tamil Nadu “would be brought under control in six months”. He said all media would come under his predecessor L. Murugan, who is now the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting.
“Within the next six months, you will see that we can bring the media under our control, take them over... you don’t worry about anything. No media can keep projecting false information continuously,” he had said while addressing party workers at Namakkal.
His statement had drawn sharp reaction from the ruling DMK with state IT minister Mano Thangaraj calling it “highly condemnable”.
