Information Bureau
| Bureau d'information | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1962 |
| Jurisdiction | Gylias |
| Parent department | Parliament and Cabinet of Gylias |
| Website | http://www.ib.gov.gls/ |
The Information Bureau (French: Bureau d'information), abbreviated IB (BI), is an administrative agency that functions as Gylias' national news agency and fact checking service. It has a substantial role in Gylian media, being one of its main regulators.
Its activities have at times been misunderstood and criticised abroad due to differing approaches to human rights.
History
The Information Bureau was created in 1962, by the Law on Freedom and Fairness in Information of 1962.
A variety of factors motivated its establishment, including the desire to stamp out disinformation during the Golden Revolution and strengthen watchdog journalism. Another motivation was public revulsion at sensationalist coverage of several highly-publicised crimes in the late 1950s.
Organisation
The IB is unaffiliated to any federal ministry, and thus reports directly to Parliament and the Cabinet as a whole.
In addition to its core staff, the agency uses volunteers to aid its activities. Staff and volunteers must not be members of political parties or any organisations with a political character.
Responsibilities
The IB is a media regulator, which guarantees that the principles of the Law on Freedom and Fairness in Information of 1962 are observed by the Gylian media.
It gathers news reports and stories, verifies their accuracy, and distributes them to media outlets after they have been checked. Media outlets are not allowed to publish reports that have not been verified for correctness by the IB first. Its staff continue to keep track of said reports afterwards. If inaccuracies or errors are subsequently discovered, it issues corrections and retractions, which are legally obligated to be as prominent as the original story.
The IB has significant powers of enforcement. Sanctions for contravening IB regulations begin with enforced corrections and amendes, and the most severe is the legal dissolution of a media outlet for pervasive infractions. It also plays a role in regulating the Internet in Gylias, and issues rebuttals to inaccurate, misleading, or false statements about Gylias made by foreign media.
A key part of its activity is preventing disinformation of the public. Some of its most severe crackdowns are on conspiracy theory, denialism, and pseudoscience.
Impact
The IB has been a defining influence on Gylian media since it was created. Its proactive regulations and enforcement are credited with preventing the practice of tabloid journalism and junk food news. Its emphasis on veracity and accuracy have influenced Gylian media to avoid false balance — instead at times to even be openly dismissive of fringe and conspiracist views.
Its shutting down of media outlets for misinformation, violating anti-discrimination laws, or anti-constitutional activities, are credited with preventing extremist forces from establishing outlets that would disseminate their message to a wider audience. As a result, the majority of Gylian extremist sites are in fact hosted on foreign servers, in an attempt to escape IB prosecution.
By operating as a trusted arbiter and emphasising truthfulness, it has played a key role in shaping Gylian political culture, as the threat of legal sanctions and public censure ensures a greater level of restraint in public debates and limits propaganda. Its mandate has prevented the emergence of conventional election debates due to issues of ensuring factual accuracy and moderation. Instead, Gylian elections favour local public meetings at which multiple candidates deliver campaign speeches, debate among themselves, and answer questions from voters.
The IB's activity is based on the Gylian perspective of human rights as universal but not absolute in society. As a result, its existence is the target of criticism from abroad, seen as a restriction on freedom of the press.