HPAS/Allied Mains 2022 Answer Writing Challenge Day 107 : Model Answer

Question: What are the various challenges in conducting free and fair elections in the era of rapid growth of social media? Mention the steps taken by the Election Commission of India to tackle this menace and suggest further measures. (8 Marks)

Answer:

The number of social media users in India has doubled in the last 3 years to presently over 350 million, of which 70% are active social media users. Proliferation of social media can influence public sentiment through exchange of unverified, directed and fake news as was evident in the 2016 US Presidential elections- essentially using social media as an ‘information weapon’.

In this context, social media poses a challenge to the conduct of free and fair elections due to the following factors: 

• Not Legally Binding: Current measures in place to regulate elections online are based on voluntary commitments made by major platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter etc.
• Anonymity: Social Media which allows anonymity and impersonation thus making it difficult to identify the perpetrators of false news.
• Rapid transmission of misinformation: The immediacy of the engagement, with deep penetration through the device of posts going viral, sometimes, allegedly, owing to the deployment of bots.
• Lack of regulation mechanism: With internet base of 500 million, India generates huge amount of data, making it difficult to monitor. Also, there exists no effective means to verify the content over social media and fake news.
• Misuse by political parties: They use their proxies (fan pages) and third party contracts which push in much more subtle marketing message blended with political canvassing to influence public sentiments and gain undue advantages over their opponents
• External threats: Hostile neighbors and unfriendly foreign powers can meddle with electoral politics through social media.
• Regulation of social media also raises concerns about freedom of expression and right to privacy.

ECI in the General Elections, 2019 announced a series of new measures to keep a check on social media to ensure free and fair elections:

• It directed its state level bodies to appoint nodal officers to keep tabs on the spread of fake news, hate speech and other unlawful content across social media companies.
• Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) coordinated with the ECI to come up with a new measures and code of ethics for internet platforms
• Increase transparency in campaigning by verification of the identities and locations of all political advertisers, and disclosure of candidates’ social media accounts and expenditure
• Pre-certification of political ads by the ECI’s Media Certification and Monitoring Committee to curb misinformation and hate speech by candidates.
• Platforms have developed a notification mechanism for the ECI to legally notify them of potential violations of Section 126 of the RPA and carry out IEC campaigns to build awareness on electoral laws and other related instructions.

However, steps taken till now need to be further supplemented through various measures such as:

• A legal framework should be developed to enforce MCC on all social media platforms instead of mere voluntary commitment.
• Increasing awareness among social media users to make them able to differentiate between fake and genuine news.
• Social media platforms should rely on the judgement of ECI over the content on social media and take action accordingly.
• ECI needs to ensure that no political advertisement runs on social platforms during a 48 hours period from any social media account.

Further, the recommendations of Umesh Sinha Committee on Section 126 of RPA Act in view of social media expansion need to be adopted. At a time when social media has become the most dominant source of political information, effective regulatory measures must be put in place so that it does not undercut the electoral process in the country.