Background
The Karnataka Misinformation and Fake News (Prohibition) Bill, 2025 (“the Bill”) marks an assertive legislative foray into the fraught and evolving territory of digital information regulation. At first glance, the Bill positions itself as a necessary instrument to combat the proliferation of falsehoods on social media platforms, a menace that has proven to disrupt democratic processes, foment communal tension, and endanger public health. However, upon closer scrutiny, the Bill raises serious concerns about constitutional propriety, regulatory overreach, and the chilling effect it may have on free speech and dissent in a democratic society.
The Bill proposes to criminalise the act of “communicating” misinformation, defined as knowingly or recklessly making false or inaccurate statements of fact, in a sweeping manner that includes not just overt lies but also statements that may be partially false depending on the context. What sets this Bill apart is its wide definitional net and the punitive gravity of its provisions. It explicitly excludes satire, religious sermons, and artistic expressions from the scope of misinformation, but leaves substantial room for subjective interpretation by state authorities. The proposed penalties include imprisonment ranging from two to five years for the act of spreading misinformation and up to two years for abetment, with enhanced punishment of up to seven years and a substantial fine (up to 10 Lakhs) for fake news posted on social media platforms.
Contents and Critiques of the Bill
A central feature of the Bill is the creation of a new body, the Fake News on Social Media Regulatory Authority. Comprising a mix of political representatives, government officials, and members of the social media industry, this body is tasked with enforcing a complete ban on fake news online. Notably, it is also empowered to police a broad array of content deemed “abusive, obscene,” or “anti-feminist,” and even content that allegedly “disrespects Sanatan symbols and beliefs” or promotes superstition. These sweeping mandates extend beyond the typical scope of misinformation and fake news regulation, raising red flags about ideological policing and the imposition of majoritarian cultural values through legislative means.
The Bill’s emphasis on content-based regulation gives rise to important constitutional questions. While the state has a legitimate interest in curbing disinformation, particularly in the context of elections, public health crises, or law and order situations, the breadth and ambiguity of the provisions are likely to fall afoul of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression. The restrictions permitted under Article 19(2) must be reasonable and in the interest of public order, decency, or morality, but cannot extend to broad prohibitions based on vague cultural or religious sensitivities. By seeking to prohibit content that disrespects “Sanatan symbols,” the Bill veers into territory that risks privileging specific religious ideologies over others, violating the secular fabric of the Indian Constitution by infringing the fundamental right to equality that Article 14 provides
Further, the Bill envisages the establishment of Special Courts across the state for the trial of offences under the Act. These courts, presided over by Sessions Judges, are empowered to exercise wide-ranging powers, including taking cognisance of offences directly without committal. The offences under the Act are declared cognisable and non-bailable, with stringent limitations on the grant of bail. This prosecutorial framework, bolstered by the appointment of Special Public Prosecutors, closely mirrors the architecture used in counter-terrorism or organised crime legislation, raising concerns that a Bill ostensibly targeting digital falsehoods is being weaponised with disproportionate penal consequences.
Perhaps most worryingly, the Bill appears to centralise immense regulatory discretion in the hands of an executive-controlled Authority, with limited procedural safeguards or independent oversight. The Authority not only decides what constitutes fake news or misinformation but also issues “Correction Directions” and “Disabling Directions” compelling platforms to remove or block access to such content. This portion of the Bill could be seen as another attempt by the Government to regulate dissent in the name of tackling the problem of fake news. These actions have not gone unnoticed, rather leading to international scrutiny and pushback by social media companies, with X (formerly Twitter) filing a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court, against blocking orders issued by the government, and Whatsapp threating to leave India if it was compelled to break end-to-end encryption and harm user privacy, both cases arguing against the misuse of the IT Rules. While the importance of real-time responsiveness in curbing viral misinformation is undeniable, the absence of due process, judicial review mechanisms, or third-party oversight mechanisms renders the framework susceptible to misuse and political vendetta.
The framework’s also grants sweeping immunity from legal proceedings to the State Government and its officers for actions taken in purported ‘good faith’ under the Act, effectively eliminating a crucial check on malafide or erroneous exercise of power.
From an implementation standpoint, the Bill also seems to underappreciate the operational complexity of regulating user-generated content on global digital platforms. The definition of “social media user” is overbroad and includes even anonymous or pseudonymous individuals, effectively criminalising anonymity, a core feature of internet expression that protects vulnerable voices, whistleblowers, and dissenters.
The bill also extends liability beyond individuals to encompass companies and their directors, managers, partners, and officers for contraventions under the Act. This vicarious liability framework imposes potential criminal sanctions on individuals, unless they’re able to demonstrate lack of knowledge or exercise of due diligence. Such provisions may force platforms to adopt precautionary content moderation practices to protect their personnel.
The provision that only content “based on authentic research” in subjects such as history, science, philosophy, religion, and literature may be published on social media betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of public discourse and the value of plural opinions. It could, in effect, criminalise academic debates, journalistic investigations, or even personal interpretations that deviate from officially sanctioned versions of truth.
Equally problematic is the Bill’s extra-territorial reach. Section 3 seeks to punish any person “outside or inside Karnataka” who communicates misinformation to persons in Karnataka. This clause introduces a jurisdictional overreach that will be challenging to enforce, potentially bringing individuals and platforms based outside the state, possibly even abroad, within the ambit of criminal proceedings in Karnataka.
It also creates overlapping obligations with existing central laws, such as the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the anticipated Digital India Act (expected to replace it), which already provide mechanisms for regulating intermediaries and harmful content.
There is also a legitimate concern regarding the duplication and conflict with regulatory powers already exercised by Union-level bodies. For instance, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting enforces programme and advertising codes under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, while the IT Rules, 2021, already vest the power of content takedown with designated officers under the IT Act. While the Statement of Objects and Reasons in the Bill laments the inadequacy of existing central laws to combat fake news, this admission risks federal conflict and legal uncertainty, especially given the subject matter of telecommunications and media falls primarily within the Union List under the Constitution.
Conclusion
While the Bill addresses a pressing societal issue, the unchecked spread of false and harmful content, it does so through a legal and institutional design that is highly coercive, lacking in checks and balances, and constitutionally suspect. The Bill’s approach appears to equate state-sponsored information control with public interest regulation, offering sweeping censorship powers to an Authority lacking judicial independence. The conflation of misinformation with ideological, moral, or religious offence poses serious threats to democratic discourse and could lead to widespread self-censorship. As such, unless substantially redrafted to include clearer definitions, procedural safeguards, proportional penalties and constitutional guardrails, the Bill may ultimately do more harm than good in the fight against fake news in the digital age.
(This post has been co-authored by Tejas Hinder, Senior Editor at TCLF and Anirudh Iyer, a second year law student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.)
CITE AS: Tejas Hinder and Anirudh Iyer ‘THE KARNATAKA FAKE NEWS BILL: STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN CENSORSHIP AND PUBLIC ORDER’ (The Contemporary Law Forum, 01 August 2025) <https://tclf.in/2025/08/01/the-karnataka-fake-news-bill-striking-a-balance-between-censorship-and-public-order/> date of access.