DNA Edit: Keeping tabs

That fake news is uppermost on the government’s mind in a crucial election year, would be to state the obvious. And so is the source of that fake news — the social media. While denying that the government is planning to hire private agencies to keep tabs on media platforms ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Information and Broadcasting minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore admitted, nonetheless, that a tender had been floated to give a contract to an agency to monitor information from mainstream and social media.

The idea, he said, was also to collect feedback from the public to understand how various government schemes have been working. That such an admission has come about itself is a tribute to the powers of the media and its latest avatar, the social media, which if anything, is even more difficult to keep tabs on. On Facebook, Twitter and other media platforms, trouble makers spread fake news and circulate unverified rumours, that have led to violent incidents like lynching. In 2018, several incidents sparked off by wild, unsubstantiated rumours on social media platforms were reported from all over the country and even outside. To be sure, a WhatsApp message can reach a trouble spot faster than any police force can.

But typically, any such exercise is a double-edged sword. The only way to keep an eye on or monitor the social media is to get at the root of fake news on media platforms like Facebook and Twitter; doing that obviously entails an element of spying, which in turn can - indeed will - lead to charges of Big Brother watching. The government, though, has sought to play down any threat implicit in such an action. According to them, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) monitors reports in the print and electronic media and the new agency will likewise, look at social media. It would be interesting to see how this unfolds in the days leading to a stormy general election.