23 Social
Media Regulation
In
the past two months, more than 20 people have been killed in attacks by mobs
that have been provoked by messages on social media. Several media outlets are
urging for some immediate action against WhatsApp without offering any concrete
ideas. The government has warned WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook, that it
cannot evade “accountability and responsibility”. Meanwhile, WhatsApp has
offered an award of $50,000 to anyone who can help stop the spread of fake news
on its platform.
2015:
T.N. Seema, a Rajya Sabha MP, had asked the Home Ministry to clarify “the
mechanism existing with government to deal with the danger of high-tech
rumour-mongering kind of Internet-rumour-bombs which may lead to communal
tension and fear among the common masses.”
THREATS
1. National
security challenges like spread of
terrorism, hawala money in form of crypto currency etc.
2. Spreading of fake
news and rumors leading to mob lynching
as recently seen in Karnataka and Assam.
3. Data snooping and misuse of
online data
analysis
for nefarious purposes like manipulating elections as seen in Cambridge
Atlantica case.
4. Online harassment and
trolling.
5. Has Resulted in emergence of
new forms of crimes
like
online child grooming, Revenge porn etc.
6. Online
frauds and hacking of sensitive data.
It is difficult to overcome these challenges as:
1. Huge and expanding number of
users +
UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH + EASY-TO-USE CELL PHONES
2. Negative implications on various businesses and activities,
schemes of government like Aadhaar, BHIM etc. by
frequent internet shutdowns.
(Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations says that
between 2012 and 2017, India lost around ₹20,000 crore due to internet
shutdowns.) (In 2017, according to data from the
Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), India had 70 Internet shutdowns.
We’re halfway through 2018 and we have already reached that number. An Internet
shutdown is a suspension of the constitutional
right to free speech ; a
disproportionate act of censorship of all speech in response to the actions of
a few.)
3. Ineffectiveness of
censorship
on
content and its impact on freedom of citizens. (In Russia during the Stalinist era, for
instance, despite strict state control of information, poems and manuscripts by
dissidents were copied by hand and circulated. In apartheid bound South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s diaries were written on toilet
paper and circulated. During the
Emergency in India
,
newspapers carried blank columns and subversive obituaries.)
4. Difficulty in prosecution and tracking of crime due to jurisdiction problems and anonymity offered by the
internet
5. Lack of digital
literacy amongst people.
6. AI is still in early stages of development and cannot be used
to regulate the sector.
7. END TO END ENCRYPTION
Way forward:
1. Responsible use of social media must be taught by increasing digital literacy .
2. Joint
steps by government and social media
platforms must be taken like recent step by Facebook to spread awareness wrt
responsible use of social media. (responsibility of WhatsApp should be assessed
with appreciation for how the platform actually works. This should not be used
as an excuse to break encryption and deprive secure communications to users.
There was a legal tussle between Apple and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation over access to the iPhone used by a shooter in the San Bernardino shooting in 2015.
These tussles between technology companies and the government do not have any
good outcomes for the users.)
3. Strengthen of Cyber
security organizations and
IT cells of law enforcement agencies.
4. International
consensus wrt easier Extradition and
prosecution of Cyber criminals.
5. Data
protection and privacy must be
enhanced.
6. if
you encourage, and permit,
poisonous discourse , it will find the most convenient
vehicle for dissemination, in this instance the internet and social media.
Crippling the vehicle solves nothing when the problem lies in the flourishing
politics of hatred and divisiveness.
7. LAW
ENFORCEMENT CAPACITY + PROSECUTION
8.
RESPONISBLE BUSINESS MUST BALANCE SOCIAL RISKS AND SOCIAL NEEDS
STEPS
WHATSAPP CAN TAKE:
1. WhatsApp
needs to change its platform to enable messages to be either public or private.
Messages between individuals should remain private and not be those that can be
forwarded. However, if a message creator wants to enable the forward ability of
that message, the chat should be treated as public, and attributed with a
unique ID linked to the original creator. This will allow WhatsApp to shut down
such a message across its network once it is reported, and identify the creator
when a court-directed request is made by law enforcement agencies.
2. As a
range of organisations led by SFLC.in have pointed out, WhatsApp allows people
to be added to groups without their knowledge or consent. This is a bug in the
platform that causes increased social risk, because socially inflammatory
messaging is easily spread by adding people to groups formed for the purpose of
incitement.
