TESTING TIMES

Social Media Discord
Indians can’t be treated as guinea pigs anymore
By Nishant Arora
After a week full of intense drama
and screaming headlines
as social media giants and
the Indian government/law enforcement
agencies took the knives out in
the open over new IT rules as well as
spread of misinformation, millions
of Indians were left with a burning
question: Where does all this lead
as the spread of fake news continues
unabated?
Amid an absence of a dedicate
law on misinformation -- as other
nations move on to penalise social
media firms (Russia has just fined
Twitter about $259,000 for its failure
to remove banned content) -- India
currently has an insufficient IT
regime to regulate social networks,
which have grown so big that taming
them need more than just firing
notices every now and then.
In this debate, users in India have
been worst hit, facing humongous
difficulties in removing or disabling
access to the spread of fake news/
Leading cybersecurity
experts feel that India
needs to give a strong
message to social media
companies that users
cannot be treated as
guinea pigs in terms
of publishing and
transmission of fake
news/misinformation.
misinformation about themselves
on the social media platforms.
Leading cybersecurity experts
feel that India needs to give a strong
message to social media companies
that users cannot be treated as guinea
pigs in terms of publishing and
transmission of fake news/misinformation.
“India has failed to control the
spread of fake news, primarily because
regulating misinformation has
never been a political priority. India
has allowed itself to lag behind in the
race of nations in this regard, while
smaller countries like Malaysia, Singapore
and France have come up
with dedicated legal frameworks to
deal with misinformation,” leading
cyberlaw expert Pavan Duggal told
IANS.
The Indian Information Technology
Act, 2000 is not a law on
fake news. Consequently, even the
amendments to the IT Act, 2000 by
virtue of the IT (Amendment) Act,
2008 did not deal with fake news,
barring inserting Section 66A.
The Section 66A made it an offence
when somebody sends any
information which he knows to be
false, but which is sent for the purpose
of causing annoyance, inconvenience,
danger, obstruction, insult,
injury, criminal intimidation, enmity,
hatred or ill will.
However, the Supreme Court
48 July 2021
Opinion Express