It surprises me as a citizen that the very social media that propelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power in 2014, is the same that is trying to bring down the government today. Since so much has happened to his image already, the government now intends to control this on its own. No matter how much it tries to deny the fact, the intentions now look very dishonourable.
Headlines regarding Twitter is pretty much about scaring people who keep opinioning on issues that this government doesn't want them to. It's shameful that Prime Minister Modi in a recent address to the G7 forum said that the citizens of the Democratic Republic of India enjoy the freedom of speech. One can only hope if he was corrected then and there only. But as some self-proclaimed patriots would have questioned me if I wanted my country's image to be dented on a global stage, but wouldn't introspect as to who's causing more harm to the idea of India. People have been named in FIRs where they just commented on an issue or shared it on Twitter as what we regularly call "quote tweet". Sadly there was no FIR against people who spread fake news in the form of a morphed picture featuring Congress President Sonia Gandhi where it allegedly shows that the bookshelf behind her has the ‘Holy Bible’, a statue of Jesus and a book titled ‘How to Convert India into a Christian Nation’. The tactics by the BJP IT Cell did work for some moment until the fact-checking media outlet Alt News came up with concrete evidence to quash the legitimacy of the morphed picture circulated by the IT cell. It showed how well orchestrated the entire thing was from the very beginning. BJP members amplified the fake image of Sonia Gandhi with a morphed picture of a book but no FIRs were filed. There are FIRs against people the BJP has a problem with, which includes the likes of journalists like Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Shama Mohamed, and online media organisations like The Wire, and Twitter Inc and Twitter Communications India Pvt.
This government at this moment muzzles voice and crushes dissent, let's be clear on that!
In my personal belief, anything that starts acquiring public importance should be regulated. All countries are struggling to determine what's fake and what's not fake, and this is where we need to put some stress as well. We live in a world where there's a vast sea of misinformation than legitimate information. Narratives are created only to look at things through a lens the government wants you to see from.
What led to this point
A couple of weeks back, Twitter’s labelling of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra's tweet as ‘manipulated media’ began the battle between the Indian government and Twitter. The big tech company's labelling of the tweet seems to be based on a fact-checking website whose investigation suggested that a part of the tweet appeared to be manipulated. However, the sheer lack of transparency about the due process undertaken by Twitter to ensure that the decision was in line with its community guidelines brings our attention to one of the most important issues we should be discussing in the coming days, that is, content regulation. But what seemed more astonishing was that the Delhi Police decided to raid the Twitter India head office for not removing the "manipulated media" tag from Sambit Patra's tweet that carried manipulated and fake letterheads of the Congress party. To their bad luck, employees at Twitter India have also adapted to work from home in these dark times.
A planned approach or disagreeing to comply?
Just a week ago, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad found himself in a bit of a dilemma as he was restricted from logging into his Twitter account. The Minister didn't shy away from attacking twitter right away, accusing the big tech company of pretending to be an archetype of free speech but running its agenda on the duplicitous note. Minister Prasad even went on to say that if Twitter complies with the new social media intermediary rules, it would no longer be allowed to arbitrarily deny access to an individual’s account. This allegation not just generated a task for the BJP IT cell to work on, but also built a campaign #BanTwitterInIndia on Twitter itself. Yes, you read that right.
But, what the representatives of this government wouldn't want the public to know about, is that Twitter's decision to restrict the Union Minister from accessing his account wasn't arbitrary. After some initial research in this regard, it turns out that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry on behalf of Sony Music Entertainment had flagged a copyright violation complaint about AR Rahman’s Maa Tujhe Salaam on May 24, 2021, under the Digital Millennium Copy Act (DMCA) of the US, which protects copyrighted content on all digital mediums. Twitter took action in this regard as the tweet was from Minister Prasad which led to his account being temporarily withheld for an hour.
This government wants Twitter to follow the rules of the land and when Twitter follows the rules of the land they upbraid them for following it. It seems that by "rules of the land" the GoI means only those in their favour are meant to be followed. As a minister, one must uphold the law and cannot look to duck compliance.
One can agree that the minister should blame himself, not Twitter because he has been all talk and no action since the start of all this. He has spent a lot of time in recent weeks raging a war against Twitter, yet visibly failing to bring it in compliance with India's new IT rules. Unlike the minister, Twitter acts!
What one needs to understand
Section 79 of the IT Act provides what is called a ‘safe harbour’ to intermediaries who host user-generated content and exempts them from liability for the actions of users on their platform if they adhere to guidelines prescribed by the government. One of the most contentious provisions in the new IT rules 2021 relates to the traceability of originators of information on the internet. The traceability issue concerning originators of information on social media messaging platforms is also the subject of litigation before the Supreme Court in Antony Clement Rubin v. Union of India. This case initially originated as a Public Interest Litigation before the Madras HC seeking linking of Aadhaar with social media accounts.
The new IT rules 2021 under sub-rule (2) of Rule 5, has made it mandatory for a significant number of social media intermediaries providing services primarily like messaging, such as Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram etc., to enable the identification of the first originator of the information. This is, according to the government a way of cracking down on fake news.
The IT cell of the ruling party to date continues to be the biggest peddler of fake news in this country. You can question the legitimacy of protests, you can question the protesters at Shaheen Bagh that people are participating only for having Biryani. You can question those who question the legitimacy of PM Cares Fund. You can question those who dare to raise some doubts about the covid numbers but have a big problem with those who question the alleged scam at the Ram janmabhoomi. This is the kind of backlash that the IT cell has been receiving lately and finds itself on the wrong side all the time.
What's interesting is that the intermediary status is being revoked only when the IT ministry or GoI is on the backfoot. Digital India was nothing but a sham. It has been reduced to ashes.
Ask yourselves, if there's a single point of control, shouldn't there be a single point of failure too? The motive is to keep this party in power as long as they can, using whatever means they can. Whenever there's an election coming, you would notice a resurgence of oppression of voices. The GoI is pretty well aware of the shifting narrative. They know how to tackle this. They believe in polarisation and they have been doing so. There's selective use of the law. The biggest threat to fascism and authoritarianism is voices and conversations. We the people of India dictate what our future will be. The real opposition is the people. Freedom would come at a cost, and it would be born by the people of the spectrum. People in 2014 signed up to the narrative that India hasn't achieved anything big and we have the acche din ahead. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, rather it has worsened. It is the very people who brought a guy from Gujarat to the 7 racecourse road, so it shouldn't be a problem for them to remove him too.
A bigger hypocrisy
Govt is in arms with Twitter but has no issues with fake news, especially with OpIndia, one of the biggest fake news peddlers that have come into the limelight because of its sentiment provoking posts. Social media is getting bullied time and again, only when it goes against the government of the day. We need to ask ourselves as to what kind of message are we sending to the tech companies? Who's going to invest when they see such a volatile situation in India? Private matters such as religion and stuff are being discussed on social media platforms by the Right Wing groups. Don't know what's more ridiculous than that. It's still unthinkable for me to witness that #NathuramGodseAmarRahe was trending on Twitter on Gandhiji's martyrdom day. The govt had got nothing to say on that, and we take pride in using Gandhi's principle of Non-cooperation and civil disobedience as means of building up the image of a peaceful country.
With the passing years, things have become intolerant, so as the courts, so as the police. FIRs and complaints are being treated differently. An FIR against Arnab Goswami is quashed by the courts, but Stan Swamy is unable to get bail. This is the sorry state of affairs of our country today. Not just Father Stan Swamy but several student activists have been put up in jail framed in questionable charges with fabricated evidence only because they disagree with this government. The ramifications of going to jail are catastrophic. Your study plans for abroad gets ruined and whatnot.
If someone is scared to talk about something in their very own country, it speaks volumes about the present government. A bully would always try to bully you. But what the bully fears the most is the youth of this country. Always remember that!
By Sriyansh Mohanty
Comments
Post a Comment