MHA asks states and UTS to curb lynchings
ADVISORY Tells them to check lynching incidents fuelled by rumours
NEW DELHI: The ministry of home affairs (MHA) on Thursday asked the states and Union Territories (UTS) to check incidents of mob lynching fuelled by rumours of child-lifting on social media.
The advisory comes after more than 20 people were lynched over the last two months on suspicion of child-lifting, the latest being the killing of five men in Maharashtra’s Dhule district.
The ministry has now urged the states and UTS to “keep a watch for early detection of rumours of child-lifting and initiate effective measures to counter them”.
The states and UTS have been asked to direct district administrations to identify vulnerable areas and conduct community outreach programmes for creating awareness and building confidence.
“The Centre has asked the states and UTS to take measures to prevent incidents of mob lynching fuelled by rumours of child-lifting circulating on social media,” an MHA spokesperson said.
The ministry has also directed the state governments to properly investigate the complaints of child abduction or kidnapping to instil confidence among the affected people. The centre on Tuesday had directed Whatsapp, the Us-based messaging platform, to take steps to prevent the spread of “irresponsible and explosive messages”.
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that finding technological fixes to identify mass-circulation of messages on a particular issue, in a particular area cannot be “rocket science”, and that social media cannot evade its responsibility.
Responding to the government’s directions, Whatsapp on Wednesday said that fake news, misinformation, and hoaxes can be checked by the government, civil society and technology companies working together.
Two people were lynched in Tripura on June 28 and two in Assam last month on suspicion of child-lifting. Technology can never be perfectly regulated using legal instruments and coercion. It requires a combination of instruments including behavioural norms and technology features.
To the extent technology features can be used to address the issue of misinformation, Whatsapp appears to be on the right track. Reliance on deep learning tools is no different from how Paypal successfully addressed fraudulent transfers using pattern analysis. Digital literacy, addressed towards better behavioural norms, is again a long-term goal. A major gap in this letter (sent by
Whatsapp to government) though is on the issue of suspending user accounts based on assessment of their behaviour. Any such policy needs careful thought as free speech concerns are implicated. No (they are not enough), misinformation and propganda cannot be stopped at the platform level within Whatsapp without compromising privacy. It is important to consider this as it’s an instant messaging platform and not a social media network with public posts. It seems as if the government is putting the onus of maintaining law and order on
Whatsapp. We’re noticing the failings of modern public broadcasting, which is inadequately funded and has witnessed political interference. The steps that Whatsapp has enlisted are not enough in terms of scale to address this problem in India. If it took partnerships with 24 media firms in Brazil, which has a population of slightly over 200 million and 97% of the population speaks in one language, then in India given the number of languages and the size of our population it will take atleast a 1,000 such partnerships to bring about any meaningful change here. Ideally, Whatsapp should have taken these steps a while back. Since this is an election year, we see a lot of platforms checking boxes and making changes to their privacy policies. Whatsapp is a global company but it must understand each country they are present in on a case to case basis and implement changes accordingly. India is low on digital literacy and has a history of mob justice.
The company needs to use tools that can detect the source of origin of the original video or photograph. They have not laid enough emphasis on decision making. Content going viral and the subsequent surge in traffic is good for business. Whatsapp needs to do more to help people find out whether a message is true or false thereby eliminating a large majority of misinformation.
Having said that, the government is shirking its responsibility by throwing Whatsapp under the bus. Yes, encryption makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to find the bad actors but lynching is not a new issue. The government has not taken steps to run awareness programs to tackle the problem.