Chief Elections Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora said on Friday that social media platforms will be held accountable if they do not make the proper arrangements to counter misuse and take swift action against adverse positions before assembly elections. of Bihar.
“The adverse use of social media platforms has emerged as a new challenge in recent times,” Arora said. “If proper arrangements are not made to counter misuse of social media, they will not be allowed to take the pretext of being just a provider and they will be held liable if necessary action is not taken quickly and properly.”
The Commission has also asked political parties and candidates to sensitize their representative so that they do not engage in “bad practices, malicious propaganda and instances of incitement to hatred”, since such actions will be treated with “severity” and “harshness”.
“The commission would like to make it emphatically clear that anyone who misuses said platform, such as to foster communal tensions, etc. for electoral purposes, she will have to face the consequences according to the law of the country, “said Arora.
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Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Commission and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp together with IAMAI had signed a voluntary code of ethics. According to the code, while participants “acknowledge that they are neither the author nor the publisher of such content,” they are “committed to helping support democratic processes by improving the integrity and transparency of electoral processes.”
Hindustan Times reached out to Facebook and Whatsapp for a comment, but did not receive it until press time. Twitter declined to comment.
Arora’s statement also comes in the wake of August Wall Street Journal reports alleging that Facebook had selectively exercised its hate speech policy to favor the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. However, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that the platform allowed people to post against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and BJP claimed that there was a nexus between Congress and Facebook. .
Under Twitter’s recently updated civic integrity policy, a person may not use Twitter services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process. However, it does not mention propaganda, hate speech or malicious content.
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According to people familiar with the matter, the Commission draws its reservation of power from Article 324 of the Constitution. “Elections are held under the Constitution and the Supreme Court in its ruling has held on several occasions that Article 324 grants broad powers to the Commission subject to certain restrictions such as fairness and transparency,” said the person on condition of anonymity. The person added that the call would have to be answered on a case-by-case basis.
Article 324 allows the Electoral Commission the “superintendency, direction and control of the elections.” The EC had invoked this provision in West Bengal in May last year, reducing the campaign in the state before parliamentary elections after clashes between BJP cadres and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Calcutta.
However, experts say the ECI’s powers to regulate social media platforms are limited.
“Its authority to regulate the platforms is not clearly established,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, global cybersecurity leader and Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now. “They are stretching the authority they have to regulate electronic media and threatening companies by proposing to regulate or prosecute them.”
“It is commendable that the CEC is talking about this, yet ICE has failed to advance any reforms to protect electoral democracy in the digital age in India. Before the 2019 general elections, many groups working on issues of electoral reform, democracy, and fundamental rights wrote to ICE and publicly made their suggestions on how ICE can take action in this area. They also recommended involving all stakeholders on this important issue and they should not only consult political parties in Delhi, web companies and their industry lobby group. This has not happened yet, which is deeply concerning, ”he added.
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