New IT rules take social media giants to task

NEW DELHI: As India gears up for general elections, owners of global social media platforms are in a huddle over how to curb the spread of misinformation and fake news in a country where deep mobile penetration has made Facebook, its messaging service Whatsapp and Twitter available at the ingertips of millions.

Despite efforts that began with sincerity only in the later half of 2018 − including ad campaigns to collaborating with fact-checking agencies − the Indian government has now formulated new IT guidelines where social media platforms have to remove within 24 hours any unlawful content that can affect the “sovereignty and integrity of India.”

India is a lucrative market for social media irms and has the potential to grow big − with over 400 million smartphones and over 700 feature phone users − the latter being targeted by mobile manufacturers with feature-packed, entry-level devices which would help them get full access (unlike the “Lite” versions with restricted experience) to social media apps.

For Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, India is extremely important and there are lot of opportunities for him in the country.

“We love the conversational nature of the society and culture. We’re really excited to make Twitter viable to more and more people in the country,” Dorsey said during his India visit in November last year.

Facebook, with close to 300 million users and over 200 million users for its Whatsapp service in India, is also bullish on the future growth prospects.

According to experts, social media platforms must look at India from a fresh perspective − just like in the case of the European nations after the onset of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May last year − when it comes to honouring the law of the land.