Future of Social Media in India
Butterfly Effect
{buht•er•flahy•ih•fekt} – In chaos theory, it is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a ‘deterministic nonlinear system’ can result in large difference in a later state. Or simply, one small incident can layout a much larger impact in the surroundings like the domino effect.
“He who controls the narrative, controls the people!” might sound spooky; but in today’s scenario, it holds its ground pretty much firmly.
Recently, the Government of India (GoI) seized the legal shield of microblogging social media giant – “Twitter” on the grounds of “non-compliance to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines & Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 {IT (I&GDMEC) R 2021} or simply, New IT Rules”.
This has been done by the ‘Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology’ (MoE&IT), led by ‘Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad’, who also appears to be the Cabinet Minister of ‘Ministry of Law & Justice’ (MoL&J).
Earlier, for conviction of false news, the legal action was supposed to be taken against an individual, the platform used couldn’t be sued under the intermediary status provided by “Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000”.
Here’s a concise timeline of the events leading us here:-
January 2021 – Various international celebrities / public figures (Rihana, Mia Khalifa, Greta Thunberg, etc) openly came in to support the ‘Farmers Protests’, which took ugly turns in the form of violence.
February 2021 – Cabinet Ministers of GoI switched to Indian substitutes of global social media giants like “KOO App & Sandes App” to launch a campaign against propaganda regarding ‘Farmers Protest & International Media with vested interests’ + Pak PM Imran Khan targeted the GoI on ‘Disha Ravi Toolkit Case’ + Maharashtra State Government probed the tweets of Indian celebrities & public figures in support of GoI.
March 2021 - MoE&IT issues {IT (I&GDMEC) R 2021} or simply, New IT Rules, with last date of compliance being May 26th, 2021.
May 25th, 2021 – Rumours of various social media platforms getting banned within 24 hours picked up pace as multiple news agencies paid heed to.
June 5th, 2021 – Twitter withdrew the verification tick of the personal account of the Vice President of Republic of India, Mr. M. Venkaiah Naidu. (Vice President of India is also the “ex officio Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha”)
Some reasoned it to be due to prolonged inactivity of Mr. M. V. Naidu as his last tweet from this account was made July 23rd, 2020. Later it was restored.
June 16th, 2021 – U. P. State Police under the aegis of State Government of U.P., filed FIR against Twitter Inc., Twitter Communications India, news outlet ‘The Wire’, journalists ‘Mohammad Zubair’ and ‘Rana Ayub’ along with 6 others in connection, whose headquarters are in USA, alleging circulation of fake video of a ‘Muslim man’ claiming to be attacked by some people in ‘Loni (Ghaziabad)’ district for communal hatred.
On probing the authenticity of the video circulated, the police concluded that the people involved in attacks belonged to multiple religions; hence, the claim was misleading.
Now usually the individual was supposed be sued / marked under legal actions for spreading false information or fake news and not the entire platform. For the first time, the platform is being left vulnerable regarding the same.
The new IT guidelines included many guidelines for not only social media sites, but also for the ‘OTT Platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Voot, etc.’, which includes:-
• Provision of deployment of a Grievance Officer within the set-up of the respective company (ies) to resolve the user complains within 15 days.
• Identification of ‘1st Originator’ of content that authorities consider “anti-national”.
• Filing of monthly compliance report by the company on complaints received, resolved and rejected, thus, keeping a close vigilance upon the types of problems faced by the users.
IN DEPTH ANALYSIS :-
1. Grievance redressal mechanism is mandatory :-
~ Intermediaries shall appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with complaints and share their credentials.
~ Grievance Officer shall acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days from its receipt.
2. Ensuring Online Safety and Dignity of Users :-
~ Intermediaries shall remove / disable access within 24 hours of receipt of complaints of contents that exposes the private areas of individuals, show such individuals in full / partial nudity or in sexual act or is in the nature of impersonation including morphed images etc.
~ Such a complaint can be filed either by the individual or by any other person on his/her behalf.
The government hinted its notion behind doing so towards the fact that these social media giants earn billions of dollars from the humongous user base of a democratic country like India.
Indian companies also operate in USA under the mentioned guidelines of the government; therefore, these MNCs should also comply with the policies of GoI, as compliance to the “Rule of Law” is a two-way process.
While the rest of the social media giants have complied with these new guidelines, Twitter still haven’t even responded on the same. “Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted multiple times complaining that Twitter has chose the path of non-compliance” (Pretty ironic !).
Apart from that, the twitter account of the Lieutenant Governor of the UT of Jammu & Kashmir, Mr. Manoj Sinha was suspended; whose official reason isn’t known till date, though several media reports claim the account was taken down for violating the platform’s rules. It was later restored.
The twitter account of Union Home Minister, Mr. Amit Shah “uncannily lost its display picture in response to a report from the copyright holder”.
The American counterparts of Indian IT Ministry tolerate absolutely no twisting of guidelines regarding the same. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act states that “No provider / user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher / speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
In response to suspension of “Legal Shield”, Twitter has publicly assured of compliance for obvious reasons. The mainland Communist China has banned social media sites since a long, India being the 2nd most populous country on earth is the “Crown Jewel of user base”.
Why would any company ruin its well established business with almost being a monopoly in its own arena?
The answer is ‘obviously’ and Twitter is no exception.
India ranked 142nd / 180 in World Press Freedom Index 2020, published by Paris based ‘Reporters Without Borders’ and therefore the question arises, as to what extend we’ll lose rankings in it?
The 3rd point in new guidelines is a debatable in itself, as it's mentioned nowhere as to what the government considers “inappropriate” and what not ?
In such a scenario, people's voices would be shut even if they would be honest to the humanity.
But before you start taking sides sub-consciously; allow me to enlighten your innocent thought process, i.e., the dominating factor as to why India ranks too low and why this report is questionable with respect to its veracity.
The internet shutdown in the UT of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh is a major cause behind the same, whereas the veracity of the report itself is in existence due to the fact that why Myanmar’s coup wasn’t taken into consideration prior compilation of the report?
The importance of social media lies in its “Comprehensibility, Connectivity & Influence”, whose prime example is “Instagram”.
On Instagram, one can communicate with almost anyone, promote brand endorsements (Revenue Generation), seek entertainment, etc. For an idea / notion to be circulated on a wide-scale, Twitter is ‘The Choice of Platform’, as it operates almost everywhere in the world except some countries.
These digital platforms have become a part of any protest around the globe to draw the ‘attention of masses’. Any hashtag thread launched on any other platform might or might not yield desired results, but on Twitter, any hashtag surfing on top 3 in a specific category immediately brings tons heed via ‘Retweets’, ‘Tagging the concerned accounts’, ‘hashtag diversification’.
When the authorities become unresponsive, social media plays crucial role.
I myself volunteered in the “Covid Task Force” under the aegis of a NPO amid 2nd wave of ‘Wuhan Virus’ and 90% of my provided / forwarded leads of medical supplies, donors, hospital beds (normal, ICU, Oxygen, Ventilator) came to my knowledge via twitter itself.
The gratefulness & gratitude gestures of the beneficiaries of the same are souvenir of usefulness of twitter as life saver.
Various activists rely primarily on twitter as a platform to uplift the unheard voices of the society, whistleblowers when get frustrated take out on social media, which exposes fishy cooking within the authorities / various strata(s) of the society.
RESPONSIBILITY:-
“With great power comes great responsibility”.
This isn’t just a dialogue by Ben Parker, its omnipresence is inevitable. Every tweet posted makes an impact somewhere in a particular way, which in negative terms create issues like Communal Disharmony, Violence, etc via “Butterfly Effect” (Depending upon the reach of the person).
Post Republic-Day Violence on January 26th, 2021, the toolkit controversy almost polarized the public into two groups (thank you Greta!)
Therefore, it becomes a matter of sheer awareness and utmost onus to speak out “veracious news”.
CONCLUSION:-
As much as twitter needs to stay in the Indian market and enjoy its billions of revenue, GoI can’t afford to lose more in World Press Freedom Index. These two are interlinked somewhere and maintaining the balance is the key to a progressive state.
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