Regulating Social Media Platforms
The India Commentary view
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2022-10-31 09:41:28
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The India Commentary view
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The government of India has issued amended rules for social media companies. These ask the platforms to make "reasonable efforts" to prevent information or news that is fake or misleading from being transmitted through their platform. This is a step in the right direction. Traditional media is regulated and such media companies take reasonable steps to prevent dissemination of fake or misleading news. Social media needs to be similarly regulated and must also have a robust self-regulation mechanism. It is not enough for these platforms to argue that they are just allowing user generated content. They need to be held accountable in the same manner as the traditional media for they are following the same advertisement-backed revenue model, without - importantly - the necessary expenditure for gathering news.
Interestingly, despite denials, it has been found that social media platforms create algorithms that favour content that is likely to cause conflicts since it has more chances of going viral. They also indulge in censorship as per their policy. Hence, it is necessary to end the immunity granted to them on the plea of just publishing user generated content because the users are mostly unverified and the content is also from unverified sources and could be part of devious agendas.
In this regard, it should be made mandatory for social media platforms to allow only verified users to post on the platform. The government had told Parliament in March this year that it is not making user verification mandatory for social media platforms as that will raise important questions about matters of privacy and interest of safety and trust. But given the fact that unverified and anonymous users can create unlimited mischief on social media by transmitting fake or misleading news, morphed pictures and videos or abusing others without accountability (yes they can be traced through their IP address but that is in case a complaint in lodged), it is necessary to put a name and picture to go with the chosen nickname of the user. In any case, if someone decides to be part of a democratic public discourse on social media, he or she must stand up for who and what they are instead of pontificating, creating mischief or hurling abuses and threats through faceless accounts.
