Can India hold digital giants accountable?

Now, if India or other countries were to propose regulations or impose penalties like these, not just the conservatives and probably the centrists who are against most government regulation of businesses, but also segments of the liberals would be up in arms

United States-based digital giants - the operators of social media, search engines and e-commerce platforms - exercise vast power beyond their borders over political and social discourse - as seen in the course of India’s elections - as well as on economies.

To get an idea of where power now resides in the digital age, consider Facebook and its messaging app, WhatsApp. India has at least 300 million Facebook users and probably as many on WhatsApp, while the US has only 210 million users on Facebook, according to Statista, and only in tens of millions on WhatsApp, according to other sources.

Yet who gets to control them? Not India. The United States, and not just the government, but also political and business interests, as well as the vocal civil society sector. And, one might add, Wall Street. Europe by sheer force of economic power exerts far more control than India on the digital giants and US media generally acquiesce to it. Even Singapore is trying to control them.

The US government recently charged Facebook with violating laws forbidding discrimination against minorities in housing, opening the way for suits to be filed against it and other digital companies. The European Union fined Google USD 1.7 billion last month for advertising policies that violated its antitrust regulations. And Singapore has unveiled legislative proposals to curb fake news and communal propaganda that would be backed by fines and forfeiture of advertising revenues.

Can India take any of these measures? Can New Delhi apply Indian laws against monopolies or discrimination, for example, to the tech companies? Would it be able to fine the social media companies for disseminating communal propaganda or fake news - serious transgressions for which traditional media platforms will be taken to task?

Or take Amazon, which has an Indian subsidiary. There are demands in the US for government controls over it and in the latest - and most serious iteration Democratic Party Senator and presidential aspirant Elizabeth Warren has proposed enacting regulations to break it up (and also Facebook and other tech giants). Any of these measures could impact their operations in India if they come to pass. To what extent would US laws affect Amazon’s operations and customers in India? If the US were to split those companies or impose onerous regulations, what impact would they have on ecommerce and social media in India, and what could India do about it?

Now, if India or other countries were to propose regulations or impose penalties like these, not just the conservatives and probably the centrists who are against most government regulation of businesses, but also segments of the liberals would be up in arms.

When India proposed far milder regulations for Amazon to protect smaller businesses, the liberal New York Times screamed, “The change (in regulations) underscores the risks American companies face in India.”

The social media malady of misinformation - sometimes with deadly consequences - and political and electoral interference have been widely discussed, but solutions bring up the issues of censorship - and who can exercise it. (Rather than governments, often the immediate risk of censorship has come from digital lynch mobs of all political hues on Twitter and other social media.)

The competency of US-based digital companies to monitor and control dangerous posts and combat fake news raises questions. Recently Facebook’s Head of Cybersecurity Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, in a statement posted on the company’s newsroom about shutting down fake sites listed Kashmir as a separate country (but took a day to acknowledge the error). Earlier Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posed with sign saying, “Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy” clearly displaying ignorance of Indian social nuances.

Consider also the role of foreign organisations, especially state-owned entities in monitoring Indian content. Facebook has hired a French governmentowned news agency, Agence France Presse (AFP), to fact-check posts in India. For now, depending on their political inclinations, some in India may consider AFP a suitable censor, but it sets a precedent and could such outfits be

trusted always?

International media has open access to readers and viewers in a free nation like India. But many of the foreign media using this openness are not free-standing and independent. For example, two conglomerates that are at their base telephone companies, control important swathes of the media. HuffPost, Yahoo and AOL are a part of Verizon, and CNN and Time Warner are owned by AT&T. Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos privately owns The Washington Post.

The Indian liberals and secularists, along with the left, may laud them for their current slants that meshes with theirs. But is there a guarantee that media ethics - or semblance of it - would always override the business interests of the owners? And what happens when their business and India’s national interests diverge?

There is the tremendous power exerted by the civil society groups within and without the companies and these have farreaching impact: For example, employees in Microsoft, Google and Amazon - egged on by outside activists - have on ideological grounds opposed their companies undertaking government contracts in the US. But what if the pressures are exerted on legitimate operations in foreign countries? (Amazon’s cloud computing service hosts the Central Intelligence Agency and is involved in a controversial fight with rivals for a Pentagon contract.)

Meanwhile, the tech giants’ proliferation in India has stunted the growth of alternatives, unlike in China. Flipkart emerged as a force in the e-retail business rivalling Amazon, but it has been taken over by WalMart - which is not primarily a digital company in the US, but in India it is with the control of Flipkart.

All these issues of the power of the major digital multinationals, western governments and even civil society groups have to be considered in the context of India’s -- and other countries’ - national sovereignty and democracy: How can open societies preserve their national autonomy undergirded by a democratic polity in areas of commerce, economy, politics and society?

Regulations India has proposed to ensure more accountability by requiring creation of subsidiaries by those with large presence may be a start in finding solutions to that question, but only a starting point in a serious debate. Indian political parties and civil society have to look beyond perceived immediate political gains to build a national consensus on preserving political, social and economic independence in the digital age, while upholding democracy.

Meanwhile, the tech giants’ proliferation in India has stunted the growth of alternatives, unlike in China. Flipkart emerged as a force in the e-retail business rivalling Amazon, but it has been taken over by WalMart - which is not primarily a digital company in the US, but in India it is with the control of Flipkart