#FactCheck-AI-Generated Image Falsely Shows Iranian Soldiers Near Downed Helicopter

AI and other technologies are advancing rapidly. This has ensured the rapid spread of information, and even misinformation. LLMs have their advantages, but they also come with drawbacks, such as confident but inaccurate responses due to limitations in their training data. The evidence-driven retrieval systems aim to address this issue by using and incorporating factual information during response generation to prevent hallucination and retrieve accurate responses.

What is Retrieval-Augmented Response Generation?

Evidence-driven Retrieval Augmented Generation (or RAG) is an AI framework that improves the accuracy and reliability of large language models (LLMs) by grounding them in external knowledge bases. RAG systems combine the generative power of LLMs with a dynamic information retrieval mechanism. The standard AI models rely solely on pre-trained knowledge and pattern recognition to generate text. RAG pulls in credible, up-to-date information from various sources during the response generation process. RAG integrates real-time evidence retrieval with AI-based responses, combining large-scale data with reliable sources to combat misinformation. It follows the pattern of:

• Query Identification: When misinformation is detected or a query is raised.
• Evidence Retrieval: The AI searches databases for relevant, credible evidence to support or refute the claim.
• Response Generation: Using the evidence, the system generates a fact-based response that addresses the claim.

How is Evidence-Driven RAG the key to Fighting Misinformation?

• RAG systems can integrate the latest data, providing information on recent scientific discoveries.
• The retrieval mechanism allows RAG systems to pull specific, relevant information for each query, tailoring the response to a particular user’s needs.
• RAG systems can provide sources for their information, enhancing accountability and allowing users to verify claims.
• Especially for those requiring specific or specialised knowledge, RAG systems can excel where traditional models might struggle.
• By accessing a diverse range of up-to-date sources, RAG systems may offer more balanced viewpoints, unlike traditional LLMs.

Policy Implications and the Role of Regulation

With its potential to enhance content accuracy, RAG also intersects with important regulatory considerations. India has one of the largest internet user bases globally, and the challenges of managing misinformation are particularly pronounced.

• Indian regulators, such as MeitY, play a key role in guiding technology regulation. Similar to the EU's Digital Services Act, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, mandate platforms to publish compliance reports detailing actions against misinformation. Integrating RAG systems can help ensure accurate, legally accountable content moderation. 
• Collaboration among companies, policymakers, and academia is crucial for RAG adaptation, addressing local languages and cultural nuances while safeguarding free expression. 
• Ethical considerations are vital to prevent social unrest, requiring transparency in RAG operations, including evidence retrieval and content classification. This balance can create a safer online environment while curbing misinformation.

Challenges and Limitations of RAG

While RAG holds significant promise, it has its challenges and limitations.

• Ensuring that RAG systems retrieve evidence only from trusted and credible sources is a key challenge. 
• For RAG to be effective, users must trust the system. Sceptics of content moderation may show resistance to accepting the system’s responses. 
• Generating a response too quickly may compromise the quality of the evidence while taking too long can allow misinformation to spread unchecked.

Conclusion

Evidence-driven retrieval systems, such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation, represent a pivotal advancement in the ongoing battle against misinformation. By integrating real-time data and credible sources into AI-generated responses, RAG enhances the reliability and transparency of online content moderation. It addresses the limitations of traditional AI models and aligns with regulatory frameworks aimed at maintaining digital accountability, as seen in India and globally. However, the successful deployment of RAG requires overcoming challenges related to source credibility, user trust, and response efficiency. Collaboration between technology providers, policymakers, and academic experts can foster the navigation of these to create a safer and more accurate online environment. As digital landscapes evolve, RAG systems offer a promising path forward, ensuring that technological progress is matched by a commitment to truth and informed discourse.

References

• https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/evidence-driven-retrieval-augmented-response-generation-for-onlin 
• https://research.ibm.com/blog/retrieval-augmented-generation-RAG 
• https://medium.com/@mpuig/rag-systems-vs-traditional-language-models-a-new-era-of-ai-powered-information-retrieval-887ec31c15a0 
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383701402_Web_Retrieval_Agents_for_Evidence-Based_Misinformation_Detection 

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Introduction

Recently in July 2026, India's Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs quietly tried to do something almost no government has managed before: switch off an app that doesn't need the internet to work.  On July 23, 2026, I4C sent takedown notices to Google, Apple and GitHub, ordering them to pull three offline messaging apps – like BitChat, Briar and Bridgefy – from the Play Store, App Store and GitHub's code repository, respectively, giving a three-hour deadline. The notices followed a period of student-led demonstrations at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, associated with a group "Cockroach Janata Party," a period that also saw a mobile internet shutdown in parts of central Delhi. When Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who built and open-sourced BitChat, publicised the GitHub notice on X, the episode made international news. Google and Apple got near-identical orders the same night, and telecom operators were reportedly told, and then just as quickly untold, to block the apps at the network level. By July 29, all three apps were still live on both app stores, and BitChat's code was still on GitHub. This incident is worth unpacking carefully, because it sits at the intersection of three things most people care about but rarely see explained together: how this technology actually works, what the law actually allows, and why an app can be "banned" on paper while still working perfectly on your phone.

What makes these apps different

Ordinary apps like WhatsApp or Telegram are centralised: your message travels from your phone to a company's server, and then to the recipient's phone. Block or seize the server, and communication stops. BitChat, Briar and Bridgefy are built differently. They use Bluetooth mesh networking, a system where nearby phones talk directly to each other, and each device also relays messages onwards to phones further away, like a bucket brigade. No message ever touches a central server. Briar adds a further layer by routing traffic over Tor, an anonymity network, when internet access is available, and falls back to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi Direct when it isn't. Bridgefy is tuned for larger crowds, useful during concerts, natural disasters, or protests where thousands of phones are packed into a small area and cellular networks buckle under the load. This design, often called decentralised or peer-to-peer communication, is precisely why these apps are useful during disasters and precisely why they worry law enforcement: they keep working when the internet doesn't, whether that's because a cyclone knocked out cell towers or because the government itself ordered a shutdown.

The legal machinery behind a takedown notice

India's power to block online content mainly comes from Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which lets the central government order blocking on grounds like sovereignty, public order or preventing incitement to an offence  but only through a defined process set out in the IT (Blocking) Rules, 2009: a designated officer, a review committee, and recorded written reasons. The Supreme Court examined this exact provision in its landmark 2015 ruling, Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. While the judgement is best remembered for striking down the vague "offensive speech" law under Section 66A, it separately upheld Section 69A specifically because it came with procedural guardrails, a reasoned order, an opportunity to be heard, and the possibility of judicial review that stopped it from becoming an unchecked censorship tool. The July 23 notices, however, reportedly leaned on a different lever: Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, read with Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021. That provision governs when an intermediary loses its legal immunity ("safe harbour") for user content if it fails to act on a government or court order,  a mechanism built for content takedowns, not necessarily for pulling an entire app off a store shelf within three hours. Legal commentators have flagged this as significant, since Shreya Singhal itself read down Section 79(3)(b) to require action only pursuant to a court order or a properly authorised government direction, not an informal notice. This isn't the first time a mesh-messaging app has run into this machinery. In 2023, following an I4C request, the government blocked Briar and thirteen other apps in Jammu and Kashmir under Section 69A, citing use, the first known instance of Section 69A being used for a regional block. Briar's developers challenged this in the Delhi High Court; in 2024, the court dismissed the challenge, holding that principles of natural justice can give way in matters of national security.

Why you can't easily switch off a mesh network

Here's the technical wrinkle that made the July order largely symbolic: removing an app from the Play Store stops new downloads, but it does nothing to phones that already have it installed, and it does nothing at all to the Bluetooth radios exchanging messages between those phones. Unlike an internet shutdown, which works by controlling the pipes that all traffic must pass through, a mesh network has no chokepoint, no server to seize, no IP address to blacklist, and no single company to compel.

GitHub, for its part, said it followed its standard process of notifying the account holder and offering an appeal before taking any action, which is one reason BitChat's source code stayed publicly accessible throughout. Within a day, officials reportedly told the companies orally that enforcement wasn't necessary after all, though no public clarification or official document has been released explaining why the notices were issued or withdrawn.

Two legitimate, competing interests

None of this means the government's underlying worry is baseless. Law enforcement agencies genuinely lose visibility when communication moves off networks they can lawfully intercept, and coordination of unlawful assembly or violence is a real concern during volatile protests. 

The transparency gap

The single biggest problem with how this played out isn't the underlying concern  it's the absence of a public, reasoned order. Under the blocking rules, disclosure is restricted, and courts, including the Supreme Court in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, have said that when access is restricted, reasons must be recorded and, where possible, made available. A three-hour notice, issued and then informally withdrawn without explanation, sits uneasily with that standard. A more durable approach,  one that CyberPeace and other digital-rights researchers have called for, would combine clearly identified statutory authority; published (even if redacted) reasoning; proportionality review; and investment in lawful digital forensics, rather than blanket app-store takedowns that decentralised technology is, by design, built to survive.

CyberPeace's policy recommendations

Alongside the legal analysis above, CyberPeace puts forward a ten-point framework for how India should approach decentralised communication technologies going forward, instead of defaulting to blanket takedowns:

• Strengthen transparency in blocking decisions
• Ensure statutory clarity
• Apply legality, necessity and proportionality
• Differentiate technology from misuse
• Invest in advanced investigative capabilities
• Establish a multi-stakeholder advisory mechanism
• Develop a framework for emerging decentralised technologies
• Promote responsible innovation
• Enhance public awareness
• Foster international cooperation

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Conclusion

The referred incident illustrates that regulating decentralised technologies requires more than swift takedown notices. As communication networks become increasingly resilient and distributed, effective governance must combine legal certainty, technical realism, transparency, and proportionate enforcement. India's challenge is not simply to regulate emerging technologies but to develop a kind of regulatory framework that safeguards national security and the constitutional values of privacy, free expression, and due process.

Sources

• MediaNama — Bitchat was not the only mesh-messaging app targeted by a government takedown notice
• Outlook Business — Beyond GitHub, Govt Also Directed Google To Take Down Bitchat, Briar And Bridgefy
• The Wire — Government Asks GitHub to Remove Bluetooth Messaging App Bitchat Over Concerns of 'Misuse'
• The Tech Trace (Substack) — The Indian govt's crackdown on Bluetooth-enabled messaging apps that wasn't?
• Bar and Bench — Section 69A IT Act and the expanding architecture of digital censorship in India
• Supreme Court Observer — X relies on 'Shreya Singhal' in arbitrary content-blocking case in Karnataka HC
• LiveLaw — Internet Freedom, Shreya Singhal v Union of India, IT Act, Blocking Rules 2009
• Manupatra — Full text, Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1
• Open Magazine — CJP Protests at Jantar Mantar: How Offline Mesh Messaging Apps Powered a Network of Resistance

Introduction

The debate between free speech and social responsibility is one of the oldest, long-running debates in history. Free speech is considered to be at the heart of every democracy. It is considered the “mother” of all other freedoms, enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution under Part III: Fundamental Rights. It takes various shapes and forms according to the sociopolitical context of society. Evelyn Beatrice Hall, a prominent English writer of the 19th century, laid the foundation of every democracy when she wrote in her book, "I disapprove of what you say, but I willdefend to the death your right to say it." The drastic misuse of social media to disseminate propaganda and fakenews makes it a marketplace of half-baked truth, becoming the antithesis ofwhat early philosophers dreamed of for a democratic modern age. Losethe ethics, and there you have it, the modern conceptualisation of freedom ofspeech and expression in the digital age. The right to freedom of speech andexpression is one of the most fundamental rights, but its exercise is notunfettered, and certain limits are placed upon this right under Art. 19 (2).Every right comes with a corresponding duty, and the exercise of such freedomalso puts the citizenry under the responsibility not to violate the rights ofothers and not to use the media to demean any other person.

SocialMedia: The New Public Square or a Weaponised Echo Chamber

InIndia, Art. 19(1)(a) of the constitution guarantees the right to freedom ofspeech and expression, but it is not absolute. Under Art. 19(2), this right issubject to reasonable restrictions in the interest of public order, decency,morality, and national security. This is construed as a freedom for everyindividual to freely express their opinions, but not to incite violence, spreadfalsehoods, or harm others’ dignity. Unfortunately, the boundaries betweenthese are increasingly blurred.

Thedissemination of unfiltered media and the strangulation of innocence by pushingoften vulgar and obscene content down the throats of individuals, withoutverifying the age and gender profile of the social media user, is a big farcein the name of free speech and a conscious attempt by the intermediaries andsocial media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc., to wriggleout of their responsibility. A prime example is when Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, on7th January 2025, gave a statement asserting less intervention into what peoplefind on its social media platforms as the new “best practice”. While lessinterference would have worked in a generation that merely operated on thediffering, dissenting, and raw ideas bred by the minds of differentindividuals, it is not the case for this day and age. There has been asignificant rise in cases where social media platforms have been used as abattleground for disputes, spreading communal violence, misinformation, anddisinformation.

Thereis no debate about the fact that social media platforms have fostered a globalexpression, making the world a global village, bringing everyone together. Onthe other hand, the platforms have become the epicentre of computer-basedcrimes, where children and teenagers often become prey to these crimes,cyberbullying, and cyberstalking.  

Rising Importance of Platform Accountability

Themost pertinent question that is to be asked with a conscious mind is whether anunregulated media is a reflection of Freedom of Speech, a right given to us byour constitution under Article. 19(1)(a), or whether free speech is just a garbby big stakeholders, and we are all victims of an impending infodemic andvictims of AI algorithms, because, as per the reports that surfaced during theCovid-19 pandemic, India saw a dramatic 214% rise in false information. Anotherreport by the UNESCO-Ipsos survey revealed that 85% of Indian respondentsencounter online hate speech, with around 64% pointing to social media as aprimary source.

While the focus on platform accountability is critical, it is equally important to recognise that the right to free speech is not absolute. Therefore, users also bear a constitutional responsibility while exercising this right. Free expression in a democratic society must be accompanied by civic digital behaviour, which includes refraining from spreading hate speech, misinformation, or engaging in harmful conduct online. The most recent example of this is the case of Ranveer Gautam Allahabadia vs. UOI (popularly known as “Latent Case”); the court came down heavily on the hosts and makers of the show and made its position crystal clear by stating, “there is nothinglike a fundamental right on platter...the fundamental rights are all followedby a duty...unless those people understand duty, there is no [...] deal withthat kind of elements...if somebody wants to enjoy fundamental rights, thiscountry gives a guarantee to enjoy, but guarantee is with a duty so thatguarantee will involve performing that duty also” .

The Way Forward: CyberPeace Suggests

In order to realise the benefits and derive the true benefits from the rights we are provided, especially the one in discussion, i.e., Freedom of Speech and Expression, the government and the designated intermediaries and regulators have to prepare both roadmaps, one for “Platform Accountability” and one for "User Accountability”, wherein the regulators with a reasonable foresight should conduct Algorithm Risk Audits which is a technique to make algorithms and there effects on content feeds visible. It can be an effective tool and an objective manner to compare how algorithms are automatically pushing different content to different users in an unfair or unbalanced way. As for user accountability, “Digital Literacy” is the way forward, ensuring that social media remains a marketplace of ideas and does not become a minefield of misfires.