Day 54 – Q 1.How do social media platforms pose a threat to communal harmony and social order in India? Discuss.
1. How do social media platforms pose a threat to communal harmony and social order in India? Discuss.
सोशल मीडिया प्लेटफॉर्म भारत में कैसे सांप्रदायिक सद्भाव और सामाजिक व्यवस्था के लिए खतरा पैदा करते हैं? चर्चा करें।
Introduction:
Social Media which is the proudly portrayed as fastest means of communication in present technology driven communication space has also become a menace to society especially in terms of Law and order.
Body:
How Social media pose threat to communal harmony and social order:
- Fake news: They spread fake news inciting the crowd to create law and order situation. Ex: In a communally sensitive society, fake news about one community guy being assaulted by another community.
- Mobilize Crowd: It is the fastest form of communication, where huge crowds can be gathered in shortest time. Ex: Just with one posting in local community group, large crowd can be mobilized.
- Hate speech: Hate speeches are spread through communal media to incite a violence.
- Riots: With fake information, it can lead to riots between two religious groups or community groups.
- Lynching: Fake messages has created many lynching in north eastern parts of country. Ex: Two men were lynched to death after being mistaken for child lifters in Assam.
- Flash Mob: Social media has given rise to new phenomena known as flash mob where within span of minutes, a mob can be gathered. Ex: A software engineer was lynched in Bidar by strong crowd of 2000 within no span of time.
Measures to tackle this phenomena:
- Controlling fake news: Social Media platforms have to filter spread of fake news.
- Punishment: Severe punishment to be awarded for creating and spreading fake news.
- Proactive groups: Local police can be a part of social media group to constantly check and monitor spread of news.
- Initiatives: Initiatives should be taken to fact check news and pulls down fake news’s.
Government initiatives:
- Responsibility: The government has issued directives to social media companies heads to take up issue seriously and fix responsibility.
- New features: News features have been included in WhatsApp groups after I&B ministry directives like Forwarding limited to just 5 groups, note mentioning the news as forwarded etc.
- IPC and CrPC: They are initiatives to insert clauses in Indian Penal code and Code of Criminal procedure.
- Officials: Central government has issued directives to appoint officers at district level to gather intelligence and closely monitor social media contents.
Conclusion:
Closely monitoring social media content is a good initiative but there has been protest by some quarters that it should not come at the cost of invasion of our privacy and tool for state surveillance.
Best Answer: Invincible.
