Note – Karnataka Fake News Bill is one of India’s most ambitious state-level initiatives to tackle misinformation. This article evaluates the bill against empirical research, constitutional standards, and global best practices, and offers a constructive roadmap for making it practical, proportional, and respectful of democratic freedoms.

Disinformation is not a new phenomenon. It dates back to pamphlets in early modern Europe. What is contemporary is the speed, scale, and algorithmic amplification enabled by platforms. In India, which is the largest user base of WhatsApp and other apps that dominate public discourse and false rumours have led to violence and disrupted democratic processes.

The Anti-Fake News Bill, 2025, introduced by the Karnataka government, is a massive legislative attempt, with the objective to confront this crisis. Disinformation has been the genesis of multiple instances of communal violence, swaying public opinion, and undermined electoral legitimacy lately. Regulation is not merely desirable, rather necessary. However, it is also necessary to see if the such regulation also stands the test of adhering to democratic values or silently subverts them.

Karnataka’s bill begins notifying the tangible social harm caused by misinformation, amplified by bots, edited media, and pseudonymous accounts. To address the same, it proposes the creation of a Social Media Regulatory Authority (SMRA) which would have the power to identify and act upon false content. The bill further criminalises the dissemination of false information with penalties of up to seven years of imprisonment and imposes ₹10 lakh in fines. Under its broad scope misquotes, manipulated videos, and even unverified posts are covered.

The intent behind such an elaborate bill may be legitimate, however, its architecture is plagued with deep flaws.

Firstly, the proposed regulatory authority is devoid of any institutional independence. Since the control is rested in the hands of ministers, legislators, bureaucrats, and platform representatives, the bill fosters political proximity rather than leaving any room for democratic distance. The absence of independent judicial, academic, or civil society representation raises serious questions on the aspects of bias and legitimacy. Who decides what constitutes “truth” in a polarised, plural democracy? Under the current draft, the answer appears to be: the government.

Second, the bill criminalises speech with sweeping language and minimal procedural safeguards. It does not differentiate between satire and subversion, error and malice, or dissent and deception. Speech laws must be “narrowly tailored” and serve a compelling public purpose. It violates the most basic tenets of constitutional free speech jurisprudence. The Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) held that vague and overbroad laws governing online speech are unconstitutional. Karnataka’s bill imposing punitive sanctions for ambiguously defined offences, without a precise appellate mechanism or judicial oversight, fails both.

The problem is not just domestic. Comparative global experience also offers sobering lessons. Singapore’s POFMA has been criticised for enabling ministers to unilaterally decide what is false, leading to accusations of politicised censorship. Germany’s NetzDG law, while well-intentioned, led platforms to pre-emptively remove content for fear of state penalties, resulting in self-censorship and suppression of legitimate debate. On the other hand, the European Union’s Digital Services Act (2022) avoids criminalising individual users, instead emphasising platform accountability, algorithmic transparency, and user empowerment. This rights-centric model makes sure that while disinformation is addressed adequately, it is without silencing democratic participation.

Studies show that punitive models hardly make a dent in the spread of belief in fake news. Instead, the most effective alternative interventions are media literacy programmes, platform transparency obligations, and structured correction mechanisms. A 2022 study found that labelling false content did not significantly alter belief, but education in critical reasoning did. Enforcement alone is not a substitute for civic resilience.

This is where Karnataka’s bill is amiss, despite the genuine motivations backing its genesis. It focuses on end-users rather than the platforms that profit from virality. It favours criminal sanction over structural transparency. And it excludes the very institutions like courts, civil society, academia, that could lend it credibility, nuance, and balance.

There is, however, a better path forward. Karnataka should definitely preserve the bill’s ambition but turn around its implementation. The SMRA must instead be reconstituted to include retired judges, digital rights experts, media scholars, even nominees of the Press Council of India and the Editor’s Guild of India and civil society members. Enforcement should be tiered: initially with voluntary correction, further escalating to administrative penalties, and the strict reserving of criminal prosecution for cases involving deliberate intent to incite violence or hatred. Definitions must be narrowed and in tandem with international best practices such as the WHO’s disinformation framework and the Wardle & Derakhshan typology. Platforms should also be legally required to roll out periodic transparency reports, further cooperate with verified fact-checkers, and conduct audits of their algorithms. This ensures that those driving their business based on sheer virality with disregard for the legitimacy of the content being circulated are kept under a check. The bill must further incorporate pre-legislative constitutional review and post-decision appellate safeguards.

The question before us is not whether misinformation should be regulated. It must be. The real question is whether we can do so without regulating democracy out of existence. In attempting to fight falsehoods, we cannot afford to criminalise satire, suppress dissent, or punish error as if it were malice. The line between protecting truth and policing thought is razor-thin, and laws must be crafted with the humility and precision that such a line demands.

Karnataka’s legislative experiment can either become a model of responsive, rights-respecting digital governance or a case study in how constitutional shortcuts can undermine public trust. The choice is not binary: whether the state will regulate in the service of democratic truth or claim monopoly over it.

Author(s) Name: Indu Tarmali ( Third-Year Law Student at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Science )