Polarity drives social media

Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha’s re-tweeting has ensured he approaches the Indian Judiciary top-down. After Supreme Court asked the Delhi High Court to decide the key question, the HC dismissed Raghav Chadha’s plea of quashing the summon in the criminal defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The High Court observed that as per the complainant’s case, Chadha participated in a press conference, issued derogatory statements orally, used Twitter handles, re-tweeted, disseminated, defamatory imputations targeting against Jaitley. The argument that it’s a case of re-tweeting which attracts provisions of Information Technology Act and not the Indian Penal Code did not find favour with the High Court. On the question whether a re-tweet would amount to publication and warrant the offence of defamation is yet to be decided by the court.

Content that would have otherwise required a hard editorial decision-making, such as a picture of a politician squatting in a farmland, is now made public on social media. A DU professor’s abusive Facebook post about goddess Durga leading him to jail highlights that society is being re-shaped by social media. The high standards set in the minds of millions of followers take a beating when it comes to the fore that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself follows several persons who abused Gauri Lankesh upon her death. Modi with his 3.47 crore followers claims to personally manage his own Twitter account which even supporters cannot believe.

In Digital India, most of the Central ministries command a presence on Facebook and Twitter, with majority of them engaging third party agencies for social media management. The value of such contracts being in crores, precious little is done to ensure accountability and backup. Repeated instances of official handles tweeting/re-tweeting objectionable content have come up. Majority of such instances are corrected by deleting the tweet, and at times issuing an apology, without realising that a tweet or a post is a public record as per law, which needs to be protected under RTI Act. The mismanagement in maintaining the record of the same is clear from the fact that a RTI reply from Digital India did not contain any re-tweets, when its Twitter archive was sought. The world is grappling with similar issues as POTUS Trump has now deleted several tweets.

Governance through social media poses its own questions, of which no one has an answer. Government’s instructions on usage of social media exist in law, but absent in implementation. Usage of honey traps to tap into sensitive information has gained traction on social media, but the government failed to enforce its policy on IT Resources. Dangers to National Security and the challenges in tackling the same were highlighted by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Burhan Wani’s use of social media to spread terror ideology, and the support for him on social media, even after his death, tell us about the longevity of content. Earlier, during the JNU row, a fake tweet on Hafiz Saeed was re-tweeted by Rajnath Singh himself. 

After the Supreme Court held Section 66A of the IT Act unconstitutional, police started relying upon harsh provisions of IPC wherein innocent people are arrested without even preliminary investigation. The Gujarat government is considering its own law to counter hate messaging on social media. However, a law akin to 66A, that too dealing with hate messages on social media against God, religion, government, public figures or individuals, and any political party or organization is bound to be challenged in court. The better way would be to implement the recommendations of TK Viswanathan Committee which has suggested substituting some clauses in Section 78 of the IT Act and amending Sections 153 and 505A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

It is now well established that social media companies trump up their actual user numbers to rope in more advertisers. Twitter is facing big trial in content, as tweeting will now be of maximum 280 characters. A fall of 8 per cent in Twitter’s revenue, Facebook failing to tackle fake news and constant criticism of both being a platform for hate speech have had an impact on society and its interactions. Through fake and multiple users, it has become common to manage the trends or incite a riot which is punishable under IPC. But police are rarely able to catch real culprits.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor introduced Twitter in Indian politics, but the bug came back to bite him after the death of Sunanda Pushkar. BJP became a master at controlling the social media  flow, and is now suffering from ‘Vikas Gone Crazy’ viral in Gujarat. BJP President Amit Shah has to now advise party workers to beware about false propaganda through social media. The danger seems to be very real as Rahul Gandhi has added 1 million followers on Twitter in the last two months. Common sense doesn’t differentiate much between print and digital, but the amplitude of web presents unique challenges. Privacy, defamation, fake news, paid news, national security, social enmity are just a few of the challenges that beckon social media, and we are just getting started. The government needs to strengthen the laws to counter this growing menace.

The author is a Supreme Court lawyer and an expert in Constitutional affairs. Views expressed are personal