– Rituparna Dave
The speed with which we are creating and living with science and learning new tricks of living, in the same way all the challenges are coming our way. In fact, this is the era of internet media, which has given immense power to every hand to convey its messages to the world. Often, using and misusing this freedom, false messages or fake news become a big challenge for the society, the country and the world. All the efforts are being made in the whole world including India to curb this or to say that it is spreading falsehood, but the truth is that it is a big challenge. Despite all kinds of laws, people often directly forward or forward the messages received or created on their mobiles without thinking, understanding and acting with wisdom and discretion. Just because of this game, the very successful internet technology has become a big challenge.
When there was no internet, people depended on newspapers for news and credibility was so much that there were never so many question marks as now. In this era of real time news, there is less truth and more lies. The situation is so appalling and different that earlier people used to find newspapers and copy photo clippings and circulate them. Today it is just the opposite where in the blink of an eye, false news gets shared or tweeted-retweeted by lakhs of people without checking their veracity. In this guise, people often hide their personal enmity and the world understands the deception of lies after a long time. But till then the big game of profit and loss has blossomed.
Call it social or whatever the internet media, it is also illogical to consider it as a means of freedom of expression because the wider its scope, the more restrictions. No one has such freedom and freedom to write, read and speak anything that hurts the honor or privacy of others. The latest example of this can be understood from the example of Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership being abolished recently.
Often, due to non-reliable sources and half-incomplete information, fake news or false news spreads so fast that it often even sensible people get confused. It is seen on many occasions that people from city to village and house to house get restless due to such news. Excitement spreads and people and groups get angry due to baseless talk and do big incidents. Dozens and lakhs of such examples will be found where many provinces and even countries around the world were seen to be in dire straits due to the burning of false news.
In fact, social media has become such a bomb shell without gunpowder, which burns cities and cities with flames of fire. This social system of information being non-social for the governments and the responsible shows the form that an inanimate instrument acts as fuel and petrol in the fire in mutual conflicts between living and sensible people. About two and a quarter years ago, the world saw a special example, in which the micro-blogging website Twitter permanently suspended the personal account of President Donald Trump after the violence in the US Parliament complex, which was called the warden of the world. There was a danger of risk of further incitement of violence. His Facebook and Instagram accounts were also suspended indefinitely. However, despite the ban on the plea of ​​transparency, no difference was seen anywhere in the world.
Now, it is difficult to predict how much will happen further by selling blue ticks in the name of earning in the social media platform and showing off false pride. Often the dilemma of getting an account with the right blue and orange lines ends with the heat of the money. Now the Central Government’s Information Technology Amendment Rules, 2023 which have come into force as soon as they are issued on April 6, 2023 along with the 2021 Amendment Rules, have mixed reactions from the people. While many see it as an affront on freedom of expression, many consider it the right of the government to identify fake news in social media.
The Editors Guild of India also believes that this is an attack on the freedom of the press. Now an organization under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will decide which social media post or news is misleading. All kinds of news and non-news companies will come under its purview, from Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. The truth is that this privilege law protects the intermediary from legal action if its user posts any objectionable content online, but in case of non-removal of fake or incorrect information, the platforms will also be in JD and the content serving The user must be guilty.
Surely, the thinking of the service receiver affects more than the service provider in the social media platform. The service taker can play positive responsibilities in the society in this direction. If this does not happen, it will prove to be nothing more than a burden on the litigation-laden Indian judicial system.
(The author is a freelance commentator.)
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