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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Nov 14, 2018, 07:00 AM IST
It is not enough for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, on his maiden visit to India, to say that while he is committed to checking fake news, there is no ‘one-fix’ solution to the problem. Pray why? It is like saying what Union Carbide said after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in December 1984.
Accidently, the multinational giant maintained, deadly chemical fumes had leaked out from its factory, leading to thousands of deaths. Or the oil slick caused by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010, which led to widespread ecological damages. It ended finally with British oil major BP paying $18.7 billion to Gulf states as part of the damages.
In other words, any accident — and fake news should be considered just that — cannot and should not go unpunished. While an industrial disaster can lead to death and destruction, fake news on Twitter can destroy peoples’ faith in democracy and the system.
Twitter, which counts India among its priority markets, has a large number of politicians in the country on its platform, who not just use it to engage with residents, but also for electioneering and taking on rivals. Dorsey told students at IIT-Delhi that fake news or misinformation as a category is too big and added for good affect, that if certain content is found to be misleading, it is the companies’ job to ensure that such information is picked out and prevented from spreading.
Well, he knows he has freedom of expression to hide behind, in case things go wrong. Dorsey, a celebrated figure in the US, is meeting with leading Indian politicians and officials. He told Congress president Rahul Gandhi that it was important to understand the context of the information to address the issue of fake news.
Well, let’s not make it as complex as that because there are questions that beg answers. A powerful instrument like Twitter can even influence the course of elections, as it now turns out, they did in the US. Much after Donald Trump’s victory in the US, Twitter identified more than 1,000 newly troll accounts, which influenced American elections. The company claimed that these accounts were used by the Kremlin in order to influence the election.
The problems that confront India are somewhat different. Dorsey was told by officials here that Twitter took too much time reacting to requests for removing objectionable content in cases that incite violence. According to the Union home ministry, for instance, only 60 per cent of the requests to remove content have been adhered to by the social networking site. Well, for a India that has been witness to sporadic violence merely on the basis of fake news, it is important that strict legal action is on the cards in case of non-compliance.
Twitter, like any global entity, has to take responsibility. Corporates who don’t follow rules, like the Union Carbide for instance, are destined to go down the path of destruction.
