Will tomorrow dawn with the prospect of a Facebook and Twitter-mukt Bharat? Or will it see a Cold War era-like iron curtain drop over the wild west world of social media?
Either way, the battle lines are drawn. Three months ago, the Centre issued new rules, putting the responsibility for social media posts and content on ‘intermediaries’, or in other words, social media companies that act as platforms (or ‘intermediaries’). The companies had to take responsibility for the content shared on their social media sites by users, and set up grievance redressal mechanism, follow government orders, and take down posts within a time limit among others.
The deadline for implementation ends at midnight tonight. The big question, as some alarmists have voiced, is this—'Will the government shut down the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter?'
Facebook, which runs three of the biggest social media platforms in India — WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram—issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying it aims to comply with the new rules, but “continues to discuss a few of the issues which need more engagement with the government.” Twitter, too, has reportedly not complied yet. The microblogging site has anyway been in the crosshairs of the government for some time now.
Interestingly, some of the desi social media challengers have done the needful within deadline, leading to a strong undercurrent narrative of swadeshi vs videshi, atmanirbharta etc. playing out.
“Given that we had three months to comply with the new guidelines, we interviewed candidates and finally identified experienced colleagues from within the team,” Indian language microblogging site Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawatka said. Cocking a snook at the international players who haven’t fallen in line, Koo co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna quipped, “Complying with the new social media guidelines published by the government of India within time clearly shows why it is important to have Indian social media players thriving in the country.”
It is a sentiment that echoes across the local entrepreneurs in the field. “Any entity which does business in India should be compliant with the laws of the land,” Shalabh Upadhyay, CEO and founder of a social first online news publisher, NEWJ told THE WEEK. “There needs to be greater impetus on social media companies for shared responsibility and accountability to the Indian state and its citizens,” he added.
Just like TikTok and other app bans led to a spurt in use of similar Indian-made apps, will this mean a second, more potent round of going ‘vocal for local’? “Rumours of a possible ban have raised concerns…as a result, we are seeing a dramatic spike in (our) user activity,” said Taaran Chanana, MD and co-founder of the local networking app MemeChat.
However, the other side of the argument has been for freedom of speech and expression — and how the new rules stifle exactly that. According to the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), “The Intermediaries Rules are unconstitutional and anti-democratic, and because of their far-reaching application over social media platforms, digital news media and on-demand video streaming services, it will fundamentally and negatively affect the way millions of Indians use the internet.”
Interestingly, almost everyone universally agrees that the nature of social media as it is presently desperately needs some fixin’. “The need for some internal regulation at social media intermediaries is self-evident,” pointed out Nigam Nuggehalli, dean, School of Law at BMU. His colleague, faculty associate Anubhav Raj Shekhar added, “Social media, in its unregulated form, is problematic, and the big giants have to take responsibility. However, I am concerned about the chilling effect the new rules may have on freedom of expression.”
Nuggehalli said the new stipulations “must be reviewed carefully to ensure a balance is maintained between discouraging abuse and fake news on one hand, and innovation and creativity on the other.” The question is only whether these government rules offer a chance to clean up, or whether it throws the baby out with the bathwater.
