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New rules leave social media users vulnerable: Experts
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-krupa-joseph-june-10-2021-new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable
<b>They analyse the implications of the government vs Twitter controversy on individual privacy</b>
<p>The article by Krupa Joseph was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-your-bond-with-bengaluru/new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable-experts-993460.html">published in the Deccan Herald</a> on 10 June 2021. Torsha Sarkar has been quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government had notified the changes on February 25, and allowed social media companies three months to comply. Twitter and WhatsApp had then separately approached the Delhi High Court against the new regulations, fearing they could compromise user privacy.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">On Monday, the court gave Twitter three weeks to file a response to the government’s charge that it had not appointed a grievance officer as claimed.</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Vague rules</strong></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Karthik Srinivasan, communications consultant, who uses his blog Beast of Traal to comment on social media, says the new rules are “vague and open-ended”.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">“Coupled with the fact that we still do not have a data protection law, the rules could be severely misused both by government and private entities,” he says.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Users are particularly vulnerable in a country where anything and everything offends a lot of people, he says.</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Law overreach</strong></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Torsha Sarkar, researcher with the Centre for Internet and Society, says the rules introduce additional obligations for social media platforms and classify intermediaries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Intermediaries with over five million users would have obligations to introduce traceability, instal automated filtering, provide detailed grievance redressal mechanisms, and publish compliance <span> reports detailing action taken on takedown orders,” she says.</span></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">While some of these obligations are similar to those laid down internationally, some alterations are causing concern. The traceability requirement, for example, is highly contentious as it would erode user privacy.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">“It is also concerning that the user threshold, for a country like India, with such vast Internet usage, is set at a very low level. This means that even smaller social media platforms might becompelled to carry out economically crippling obligations,” she explains.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">The legislative overreach is seen in how the initial draft , which only covered entities like Twitter and Facebook, now seeks to cover digital news media and content curators like Netfl ixand Hulu, she says.</p>
<p class="Default">Stretching the scope of the legislation this way is undemocratic since it was not subject to any public consultation, she notes.</p>
<p class="Default"><b>Case in High Court</b></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Mishi Choudhary, technology lawyer and founder of SFLC.in, a legal services organisation specialising in law, technology and policy, says the IT rules notified by the government are unconstitutional. “In the garb of addressing misinformation and regulating technology companies, the government has been exceeding the powers granted through subordinate legislation and using it for political purposes,” she says. It is on these grounds that the Free and Open Source Software community has challenged the new rules in the Kerala High Court. “Technology companies need regulation but not at the expense of user rights,” she says.</p>
<p class="Default"><b>Congress </b><span>‘</span><b>toolkit</b><span>’ </span><b>row</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A few weeks after social media platforms were asked to take down posts critical of thegovernment’s management of India’s Covid-19 crisis, Twitter once again found itself at thereceiving end. Last week, Twitter labelled a tweet by BJP leader Sambit Patra, accusing theCongress of working with a ‘toolkit, as ‘manipulated media’. Twitter says it gives the label totweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that are “deceptively altered orfabricated”. The Delhi police then sent a notice to Twitter in connection and asked the micro-blogging site to explain the reasons for assigning the tag. The police also conducted raids onTwitter offices in India. Things escalated when Twitter said the government was intimidating it. The government hit back saying law-making was its privileges, and Twitter, being a social media platform, should not dictate legal policy framework.</p>
<p class="Default"><b>New rules</b></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Under the new IT rules, social media companies like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter will be responsible for identifying the originator of a flagged message within 36 hours. They also have to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person and a resident grievance officer. Failing to comply with these rules would cause the platforms to lose their status as intermediaries, and make them liable for whatever is posted on their platforms.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-krupa-joseph-june-10-2021-new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-krupa-joseph-june-10-2021-new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable</a>
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No publisherKrupa JosephFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial MediaInternet Governance2021-06-14T11:27:53ZNews ItemBeyond Public Squares, Dumb Conduits, and Gatekeepers: The Need for a New Legal Metaphor for Social Media
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/it-for-change-amber-sinha-beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers
<b>In the past few years, social networking sites have come to play a central role in intermediating the public’s access to and deliberation of information critical to a thriving democracy. In stark contrast to early utopian visions which imagined that the internet would create a more informed public, facilitate citizen-led engagement, and democratize media, what we see now is the growing association of social media platforms with political polarization and the entrenchment of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is a dire need to think of regulatory strategies that look beyond the ‘dumb conduit’ metaphors that justify safe harbor protection to social networking sites. Alongside, it is also important to critically analyze the outcomes of regulatory steps such that they do not adversely impact free speech and privacy. By surveying the potential analogies of company towns, common carriers, and editorial functions, this essay provides a blueprint for how we may envision differentiated intermediary liability rules to govern social networking sites in a responsive manner.</p>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Only months after Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory — a feat mired in controversy over alleged Russian interference using social media, specifically Facebook — Mark Zuckerberg remarked that his company has grown to serve a role more akin to government, rather than a corporation. Zuckerberg argued that Facebook was responsible for creating guidelines and rules that governed the exchange of ideas of over two billion people online. Another way to look at the same argument is to acknowledge that, today, a quarter of the world’s population (and of India) are subject to the laws of Facebook’s terms and conditions and privacy policies, and public discourse around the globe is shaped within the constraints and conditions they create. Social media platforms, like Facebook, wield hitherto unimaginable power to catalyze public opinions, causing a particular narrative to gather steam — that Big Tech can pose an existential threat to democracy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>This, of course, is in absolute contrast to the early utopian visions which imagined that the internet would create a more informed public, facilitate citizen-led engagement, and democratize media. Instead, what we see now is the growing association of social media platforms with political polarization and the entrenchment of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. The regulation of social networking sites has emerged as one of the most important and complex policy problems of this time. In this essay, I will explore the inefficacy of the existing regulatory framework, and provide a blueprint for how to think of appropriate regulatory metaphors to revisit it.</span></p>
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<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://itforchange.net/digital-new-deal/2020/11/01/beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers-the-need-for-a-new-legal-metaphor-for-social-media/"> Click on to read the article</a> published by IT for Change</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers.pdf" class="external-link">Download the PDF</a> (34,328 Kb) to read the full article, pages 126 - 138.</li>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/it-for-change-amber-sinha-beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/it-for-change-amber-sinha-beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers</a>
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No publisheramberSocial MediaInternet Governance2021-05-31T10:23:36ZBlog EntryTIkTok: It’s time for Biden to make a decision on his digital policy with China
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tiktok-it2019s-time-for-biden-to-make-a-decision-on-his-digital-policy-with-china
<b>As the United State's new president comes into office he is faced with creating a cohesive digital relations policy that corrects some of the damage done by his predecessor. This article is the first part of a series analysing his policies and challenges. </b>
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<p dir="ltr">While on the campaign trail, now US president elect Joe Biden, made it clear to voters that he viewed Tik Tok as “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-ban-biden/biden-says-he-sees-tiktok-as-a-matter-of-genuine-concern-idUKKBN26938G">a matter of genuine concern</a>.” The statement came amidst a growing environment of hostility within the American government against the application. At the helm of the hostility was (now former) president Donald Trump’s passing of an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/">executive order</a> banning Tik Tok in the country and his attempts at forcing its parent company ByteDance to restructure the app under American ownership. Now, as the presidency passes hands, it is worth examining how the government got here and just how concerned the Biden administration should be with Tik Tok and how their strategy with the app could set the tone for digital relations with China going forward </p>
<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-8317df8f-7fff-409d-699d-15c5d046a96a"><br /></strong></p>
<h3>The Road so far: The ban and forced sale of TikTok</h3>
<p><br />America’s motivation to ban and sell the application can be explained by two contrasting factors: the cybersecurity risks that TikTok poses, and the country’s currently ongoing trade war with China. On the security side TikTok has faced immense scrutiny from governments around the world as to the amount of data that the application collects from its users as well as the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9dffdb8f-f00e-4305-a69a-158b845f6970">potential links between Bytedance and the Chinese government</a>. Furthermore there is a belief that due to the <a href="https://diplomatist.com/2020/09/05/understanding-the-national-intelligence-law-of-china-why-india-banned-tik-tok/">Chinese legislation</a> that compels companies to assist the state on matters of national intelligence, there is little TikTok could do should the Chinese state decide to use it as an instrument of data collection. On the side of trade, the TikTok ban represents one of the more landmark blows dealt by the Trump government in its trade war with China. The US, since the start of his presidency has levied exclusive tariffs on specific Chinese commodities totalling to more than <a href="https://www.china-briefing.com/news/the-us-china-trade-war-a-timeline/">$550 billion</a>. China has in response levied its own tariffs on certain American goods, with a total value of those estimated at <a href="https://www.china-briefing.com/news/the-us-china-trade-war-a-timeline/">$185 billion</a>. Beyond these tariffs, the move to ban TikTok extends the trade war by creating clear hurdles for Chinese corporations to exist within the US market and firmly extended Trump’s protectionist trade policies into the digital sphere. </p>
<p>As such, on 6th August 2020, Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/07/donald-trump-tiktok-executive-order-explainer">released an executive order</a> banning TikTok (as well as Chinese messaging and social media app Wechat). The ban has, however, since been indefinitely suspended as part of ongoing litigation on the matter at the federal level.</p>
<p>Shortly after the ban, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/">came the attempts at forcing through the sale</a>. While the deal has generally been referred to as ‘the TikTok sale’, it is not actually an outright purchase of the social media platform by an American company (<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/13/21360130/microsoft-tiktok-acquisition-bid-rejection-bytedance">Microsoft attempted such a purchase but was rejected by Byte Dance</a>). Rather, the deal would see the establishment of a new US based subsidiary called TikTok global that would be partly owned (20%) by Oracle and Walmart, with Oracle becoming a trusted technology provider in order to ensure that US user’s data remains within the state. The<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/22/tiktok-sale-the-reasons-behind-it-and-the-new-deal"> agreement stipulates</a> that the board of this new entity would have 4 out of 5 of the seats populated by US citizens, and that the company would go public as well. The current agreement would still see Bytedance retain ownership of the algorithms used by TikTok, which is in line with restrictions from the Chinese government preventing the sale of the algorithm to a foriegn owner without a state granted license.</p>
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<h3>How should the Biden administration handle this situation? </h3>
<p><br />Dealing with the TikTok question must be one of the Biden administration’s top most priorities. The most obvious question they face is whether or not to reverse the ban and to continue to push through the sale between Bytedance and Oracle. </p>
<p>The case for enforcing the ban until the sale to American owners seems one that is straightforward enough. The cybersecurity concerns surrounding Bytedance’s proximity to the Chinese state and the influence of Chinese legislation are reasonable concerns. And any data gained from the application in the hands of a hostile state could be potentially harmful. This threat could be potentially reduced based on the role played by Oracle as a trusted technology partner. However with details of what exactly constitutes the functions of a ‘trusted technology partner’ it is impossible to say this with any great certainty. Simultaneously, there is a slight sense of irony in a Chinese based digital company protesting against another country’s protectionist stance to the internet. </p>
<p>Nonetheless these benefits are in many ways greatly over exaggerated, and in many ways allowing TikTok to return without requiring a sale could prove more beneficial in the long term. Not only would the app’s return be welcomed by its immense audience (estimated 100 million US users), it would also be a clear demonstration of America’s commitment to a less fragmented internet and more open digital economy. Furthermore, revoking the ban would also allow for the opportunity to reassess and reformulate the US’s economic and political strategy with regards to Chinese technology. </p>
<p>On the economic side, a retraction of the ban could signal the beginning of the end of the US-China trade war. Chinese investors are sure to see the shift from a radical republican president to a centrist democrat one as the perfect opportunity to increase foreign investment, which had been <a href="https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3116929/china-ma-relative-normalcy-biden-pent-demand-coronavirus">steadily declining recently</a>. Such investment could prove significantly more substantial to the United States in a post covid-19 world as opposed to even in 2019. It is not unimaginable that Biden would look to maximise this opportunity to boost the economy. </p>
<p>On the political side, the government has to evaluate the success of sanctions levied against Chinese technology and whether that approach of blanket banning will translate effectively to the digital sphere. Not only has the US’s sanctions against <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/124824d6-3b13-4dbb-8b38-926797f9b695">certain chinese technologies</a> proved unsuccessful, tools such as VPNs that can negate a ban make this strategy even less effective in the digital space. </p>
<p>The largest hurdle to revoking the ban would be the genuine cybersecurity concerns with a Chinese corporation having access American citizens’ data. However, dealing with these concerns through a simple ban of the application would only solve this one instance of excessive surveillance and data collection by a foreign app. Rather any solution must look to fix the issue at its root - that being the need for a more cohesive, detailed and overarching national data protection and cybersecurity policy. Such a policy could place clear limitations on data collection, stipulate data localisation policies for sensitive information and outline numerous other means of reducing the threat involved with allowing applications from states such as China to operate in the US. </p>
<p> Ultimately, Biden will be confronted with the reality of this situation the moment he enters office. The decision he makes on TikTok would set the tone for his term and for his government’s relationship with China. Whatever he decides to do, he needs to do it as soon as possible. The clock is ticking. </p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tiktok-it2019s-time-for-biden-to-make-a-decision-on-his-digital-policy-with-china'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tiktok-it2019s-time-for-biden-to-make-a-decision-on-his-digital-policy-with-china</a>
</p>
No publisheramanSocial MediaInternational Relations2021-01-22T06:11:43ZBlog Entry Interoperability and Portability as a Lever to Enhance User Choice and Privacy in Messaging Platforms
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/interoperability-and-portability-as-a-lever-to-enhance-user-choice-and-privacy-in-messaging-platforms
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<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Since last year, digital platforms have been actively making the headlines in various countries for different acquisitions, raising questions around the anti-competitive nature of their behaviour. In the US, about 46 states filed an antitrust case against Facebook along with the Federal Trade Commission in December 2020, accusing them of buying out rivals such as WhatsApp, Instagram etc<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. Recently, the US supreme court overturned the case by 46, stating it to be tardy and FTC’s case to be “legally insufficient”<a href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>. However, one of the solutions proposed for this problem by various experts and politicians is to break up Facebook<a href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Influential people such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma (CEO, Paytm) in India argued similarly when Whatsapp updated its privacy policy to share data with Facebook. They suggested that the movement of users towards Signal could break Facebook's monopoly<a href="#_ftn4">[4]</a>. While it is conceivable that breaking up a platform or seeking an alternative for them will bring an end to their monopoly, well, in reality, is it so? This post will try to answer this question. In section 1, I discuss the importance of interoperability and portability amongst the messaging platforms for tackling monopoly, which, in turn, helps in enhancing user outcomes such as user choice and privacy. Section 2 discusses the enablers, legislative reimagining, and structural changes required in terms of technology to enable interoperability and portability amongst the messaging platforms. In section 3, I discuss the cost structure and profitability of a proposed message gateway entity, followed by the conclusion. </p>
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<h3>1. Introduction</h3>
<p dir="ltr"><br />In the case of the platform economy, the formation of a monopoly is inevitable, especially in messaging platforms, because of (a) network effects and (b) lack of interoperability and portability between messaging platforms<a href="#_ftn5">[5]</a>. As the network effect gets vigorous, more users get locked into a single messaging platform leading toward a lack of user choice (in terms of switching platforms) and privacy concerns (as the messaging platforms get more significant, it poses a high risk in terms of data breaches, third-party data sharing etc.). For instance, as a WhatsApp user, it is difficult for me to switch towards any other messaging platforms as my friends, family and business/work still operate on WhatsApp. Messaging platforms also use the network effect towards their favour (a) by increasing the switching cost (b) by creating a high barrier to entry within the market<a href="#_ftn6">[6]</a>. </p>
<p dir="ltr">If there was interoperability between the messaging platforms, I could choose between the platforms freely- thereby negating some of the aforementioned limitations. Therefore, to create a competitive environment amongst messaging platforms to enhance user choice and privacy, it is crucial to have an interoperability and portability framework. To deploy interoperability and portability, it is imperative to have coordination among platforms while still competing for individual market share<a href="#_ftn7">[7]</a>. Interoperability and portability will also bring in healthy competition, as platforms will be nudged to explore alternative value propositions to remain competitive in the market<a href="#_ftn8">[8]</a>. One of the outcomes of this could be better consumer protection through innovation of privacy safeguards, etc. In addition to this, interoperability and portability could enable a low barrier to entry (through breaking the network effect), which could, in turn, increase online messaging penetration in untapped geographies as more messaging platforms emerge in the market.</p>
<p dir="ltr">There are two kinds of interoperability, vertical interoperability – i.e., interoperability of services across complementary platforms and horizontal interoperability – i.e., interoperability of services between competing platforms. While vertical interoperability exists in the form of the cloud system, multiple system login, etc., horizontal interoperability is yet to experiment at the market level. Nonetheless, realising the competition concerns in the digital platforms’ market, the European Union (European Electronic Communications Code<a href="#_ftn9">[9]</a>, Digital Service Act etc<a href="#_ftn10">[10]</a>.), the US (Stigler Committee Report<a href="#_ftn11">[11]</a>) and the UK Competition and Markets Authority<a href="#_ftn12">[12]</a> are mulling a move towards interoperability amongst the digital platforms. Furthermore, Facebook has already commissioned its efforts towards horizontal interoperability<a href="#_ftn13">[13]</a> amongst its messaging platforms, i.e., Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram direct messages. This again adds to the competition concerns, as one platform uses interoperability towards its favour.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Besides, one of the bottlenecks towards enabling horizontal interoperability is the lack of technical interoperability – i.e., the ability to accept or transfer data, perform a task etc., across platforms. In the case of messaging platforms, lack of technical interoperability is caused due to the presence of different kinds of messaging platforms operating with different technical procedures. Therefore, to have effective horizontal interoperability and portability, it is crucial to streamline technical procedures and have guidelines which will enable technical interoperability. In the following section, I discuss the enablers, legislative reimagining, and structural changes required in terms of technology to enable interoperability and portability amongst the messaging platforms.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3>2. Message Gateway Entity</h3>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;"><strong id="docs-internal-guid-c306c6ef-7fff-4a15-1cbb-08b262bb3c75"><br /></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">2.1. Formation of Message Gateway Entity to Enable Interoperability</p>
<p dir="ltr">To drive efficacious interoperability, it is imperative to form message gateway entities as for-profits that are regulated by a regulator (either an existing one such as TRAI or a newly established one). The three key functions of message gateway entities should be: (a) Maintain standard format for messaging prescribed by a standard-setting council, (b) Provide responsive user message delivery system to messaging platforms, (c) Deliver messages from one messaging platform to another seamlessly in real-time. There have to be multiple message gateway entities to enable competition, which will bring out more innovations, penetration, and effectiveness. Besides, it is prudent to have private players as message gateway entities as government-led message gateway entities for interoperability will not be fruitful as there will be a question of efficacy. Also, this might, in a way, bring the tender style business, which is problematic as the government could have a say in how and who it will provide its service (gatekeeping). However, the government has to set it up by itself only if it is a public good (missing markets) which might not be the case in message gateway entities.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Messaging platforms should be mandated through legislation/executive order to be a member of at least one of the message gateway entities to provide interoperability benefits to its users. Simultaneously, messaging platforms can also handle internal message delivery - User A to User B within the platform - amongst themselves.</p>
<p dir="ltr">While message gateway entities will enable interoperability between messaging platforms, it is crucial to have interoperability among themselves to compete in the market. For instance, a user from messaging platform under gateway A should be able to send messages to a user of a messaging platform under gateway B. Perhaps as we enable competition amongst the message gateways entities, the enrollment price will also become commensurate and affordable for small and new messaging platforms. In addition to this, to increase interoperability, message gateway entities should develop various awareness programs at the user level.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> Further, the regulatory guidelines for message gateway entities (governed by the regulator) must be uniform, with leeway for gateways to innovate technology to attract messaging platforms. Borrowing some of the facets from the various existing legislations, the below suggested aspects should advise the uniform guidelines,</p>
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<p dir="ltr">End-to-end encryption: As part of the uniform guidelines, message gateway entities should be mandated to enable end-end encryption for message delivery. In contrast, the recent Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021<a href="#_ftn14">[14]</a> tries to break the end-end encryption by mandating significant social media intermediaries to identify the first originator of a particular message (part II section 4 rule 2) sought through an order. As this mandate impinges upon user privacy and free speech, the Indian government should revise this rule to keep end-to-end encryption intact. Besides, WhatsApp (a significant social media intermediary) has moved to Delhi High Court to block the implementation of the rules, which came into force on May 27th, 2021<a href="#_ftn15">[15]</a>. Also, Rule 4(2) of IT Rules 2021 contradicts provisions of the PDP Bill 2019 such as privacy by design<a href="#_ftn16">[16]</a> (Section 22) and the right to be forgotten (Section 20).<br /><br /></p>
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<p dir="ltr">Neutrality: The guidelines should have a strict rule for enforcing non-discrimination (similar to the Indian Government's 2018 net neutrality principles<a href="#_ftn17">[17]</a>) in delivering messages by message gateway entities. Discrimination against both messaging platforms and other message gateway entities has to be scrutinised. In addition to that, to hold message gateway entities accountable, the guidelines should mandate monthly disclosure of information (at the messaging platform level with information on which gateway entity they are routed through) on message deliveries and failures in a prescribed user-friendly format to the public.<br /><br /></p>
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<p dir="ltr">Standard Format Setting: As various messaging platforms follow different formats for providing messaging services, to have seamless interoperability, message gateway entities must adhere to a standard format, which is compatible with formats followed within the market. This standard format has to keep up with technological evolution in this space and to be formulated by an independent standard-setting council (through stakeholder consultation) commissioned by the regulator. The maintenance of this standard format falls into the ambit of message gateway entities and should be governed by the regulator.<br /><br /></p>
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<p dir="ltr"> Uniform identification information: As the users of messaging platforms identify other users through various means, for instance, on WhatsApp, we use the telephone number, whereas, on Instagram, we use profile name; thus, the unique identification information (UII) of a user (which can be something existing like a phone number or a new dedicated identification number) has to be standardised. Message gateway entities should facilitate messaging platforms with this process, and the generation of UII should be seamless for the user. Besides, a user's unique identification information has to be an additional way to search for other users within a messaging platform and would be crucial for messaging across platforms.<br /><br /></p>
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<p dir="ltr">Consumer choice: While interoperability should be a default option for all the users, there has to be a user-friendly way of opt-out for the user who wishes to compartmentalise different kinds of messages depending upon the platform used. The unique identification information (in case of a new dedicated number) of a user who had opted out must be ceased to avoid misuse.One of the major reasons users opt-out of interoperability services could be to keep various digital public spheres (personal, leisure, professional, etc.) distant. To tackle this dilemma of the users, the messaging platforms should enable options such as (a) the optional notification for cross-platform messages with the snooze option, so that the user can decide if she wants the cross-platform message to hit the enrolled messaging platform at the given time. (b) The messaging platform should enable the “opt-out from messaging platform” setting for the users to disable messages from a list of platforms. Besides, users might choose to opt-out due to lack of trust. This has to be tackled by both the message gateway entities by creating awareness amongst the users on their rights and messaging platforms by providing a user-friendly privacy policy.<br /><br /></p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Data Protection: As the emergence of message gateway entities creates new data flow, this new flow of data has to take a data minimisation approach. Message gateway entities should be recognised as the data processor (one who processes data for data fiduciary, i.e., messaging platforms). They should adhere to the upcoming Personal Data Protection regime<a href="#_ftn18">[18]</a> to protect the data principals' personal data and collect personal data as per the proportionality principle. Message gateway entities should not collect any non-personal data or process any form of data to infer the behavioural traits of the data principals or messaging platforms. In addition to this, the name of the message gateway entity enrolled by the messaging platform, data collected and processed by the message gateway entity should be disclosed to the data principals through the messaging platform’s privacy policy.<br /><br /></p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Licensing: There should be a certain level of restriction on licensing to create a level playing field. Applicants for message gateway entities should not have an economic interest in any messaging platforms or social media intermediaries. Applicants have to ensure that the delivery failure of the messages should be at the level of 2% to 1%. Besides, to ensure low levels of delivery failure, data protection compliance and to check other requirements, message gateway entities have to go through technical and regulatory sandbox testing before issuing a license.<br /><br /></p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Consumer Protection: Users should be given a choice to block another user (using unique identification information) for various reasons such as personal, non-personal, phishing etc. After a stipulated number of blocking by multiple users, the suspected user should be denied access (temporarily or permanently according to the reasons) to message gateway entities. Before denying access, the message gateway entities should indicate the messaging platforms to notify the user. There has to be a robust grievance redressal mechanism for users and messaging platforms to raise their complaints regarding blocking, data protection, phishing etc. Besides, unique identification information has to be leveraged to prevent bot accounts and imposters. In addition to this, message gateway entities should be compatible with measures taken by messaging platforms to prevent the spread of disinformation and misinformation (such as restrictions on the number of recipients for forward messages).</p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr">The figure below showcases the use case of the message exchange with the introduction of message gateway entities.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/MQgZuxU5iRI0hRzGifIb9obhlD7QA5UllDfJMXPdNPSs7qENsWZ9_8vIqs-EB12zDBhgYJwS8nzIw0zbBCJyKWDqN87la7e4vqdB_H9xbRk99Hc7OJp4oZeTtLl33pyCETVy5eAN" alt="null" height="465" width="624" /></p>
<p dir="ltr">Source: Author’s own illustration of the process of interoperability</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr">2.2. Portability Feature to Compliment Interoperability</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the case of messaging platforms, when we talk about portability, it is essential to differentiate it into two: (a) portability of the unique identification information of the user from one platform to other seamlessly (b) portability of the user data from one platform to other followed by the portability of unique identification information. As the generation of unique identification information is facilitated by the message gateway entities, the portability of the same has to be done by the respective messaging gateway entity. Adopting some features of process and protocols from Mobile Number Portability<a href="#_ftn19">[19]</a> mandated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, standard-setting council for messaging gateway entities (discussed above) should streamline the unique identification information portability process across messaging gateway entities.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Followed by the unique identification information porting, the message gateway entities should trigger a notification to the messaging platform (on behalf of the user) to transfer user data towards the requested platform. As mentioned in chapter V, section 19(1)(b) of The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, messaging platforms should transfer the user data towards the platform notified by the message gateway entity in the suggested or compatible format.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Globally since the emergence of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other legislation that mandates data portability, platforms have launched the Data Transfer Project (DTP)<a href="#_ftn20">[20]</a> in 2018 to create a uniform format to port data. There are three components to the DTP, of which two are crucial, i.e., Data models and Company Specific Adapter. A Data Model is a set of common formats established through legislation to enable portability; in the case of messaging platforms, the standard-setting council can come up with the Data Model.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Under Company Specific Adapter, there are Data Adapters and Authentication Adapters. The Data Adapter converts the exporter platform’s data format into the Data Model and then into the importer platform’s data format. The Authentication Adapter enables users to provide consent for the data transfer. While Company Specific Adapters under DTP are broadly for digital platforms, adopting the same framework, message gateway entities can act as both a Data Adapter and as an Authentication Adapter to enable user data portability amongst the messaging platforms. Message gateway entities can help enrolled messaging platforms in format conversion for data portability and support users' authentication process using the unique identification information. Besides, as messaging gateway entities are already uniform and interoperable, cross transfer across message gateway entities can also be made possible.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3>3. Profitability of Message Gateway Entities</h3>
<p dir="ltr">As the message gateway entities would operate as for-profits, they may cost the messaging platform one-time enrolment fees for membership through which the member (messaging platform) can avail interoperability and portability services. The enrolment fees should be a capital cost that compensates the messaging gateway entities for enabling technical interoperability. In addition to this, message gateway entities may levy minimal yearly fees to maintain the system, customer (messaging platforms) service and grievances portal (for both users and messaging platforms). Besides, in terms of update (as per new standards) or upgradation of the system, message gateway entities may charge an additional fee to the member messaging platforms.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On the other hand, messaging platforms don’t charge<a href="#_ftn21">[21]</a> a monetary fee for the service because the marginal cost of providing the service is near zero, while they incur only fixed cost. Besides, nothing is free in the platform economy as we pay the messaging platforms in the form of our personal and non-personal (behavioural) data, which they sell to advertisers<a href="#_ftn22">[22]</a>. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Therefore, messaging platforms have to consider the fee paid to the message gateway entities as part of their fixed cost such that they continue not to charge (monetary) users for the service as the cost-per-user would still be very low. Besides, messaging platforms also have economic incentives in providing interoperability as it could reduce multi-homing (i.e., when some users join or use multiple platforms simultaneously).</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3>4. Conclusion</h3>
<p dir="ltr">While breaking up Facebook and other bigger social media or messaging platforms could bring a level playing field, this process could consume a large portion of resources and time. Irrespective of a breakup, in the absence of interoperability and portability, the network effect will favour few platforms due to high switching cost, which leads to a high entry barrier.</p>
<p dir="ltr">When we text users using Short Message Service (SMS), we don't think about which carrier the recipient uses. Likewise, messaging across messaging platforms should be platform-neutral by adopting interoperability and portability features. Besides, interoperability and portability will also bring healthy competition, which would act as a lever to enhance user choice and privacy.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This also opens up questions for future research on the demand-side. We need to explore the causal effect of interoperability and portability on users to understand whether they will switch platforms when provided with port and interoperate options.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>This article has been edited by Arindrajit Basu, Pallavi Bedi, Vipul Kharbanda and Aman Nair. </em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>The author is a tech policy enthusiast. He is currently pursuing PGP in Public Policy from the Takshashila Institution. Views are personal and do not represent any organisations. The author can be reached at kameshsshekar@gmail.com</em></p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong> Footnotes</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Rodrigo, C. M., & Klar, R. (2020). 46 states and FTC file antitrust lawsuits against Facebook. Retrieved from The Hill: <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/529504-state-ags-ftc-sue-facebook-alleging-anti-competitive-practices">https://thehill.com/policy/technology/529504-state-ags-ftc-sue-facebook-alleging-anti-competitive-practices</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> Is Facebook a monopolist? (2021). Retrieved from The Economist:<a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2021/07/03/is-facebook-a-monopolist">https://www.economist.com/business/2021/07/03/is-facebook-a-monopolist</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref3">[3]</a> Hughes, C. (2019). It’s Time to Break Up Facebook. Retrieved from The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref4">[4]</a> Shekar, K. (2021). An Elephant in the Room – Recent Case of WhatsApp Fallout Amongst Indian Users. Retrieved from Takshashila Institution: <a href="https://takshashila.org.in/an-elephant-in-the-room-recent-case-of-whatsapp-fallout-amongst-indian-users/">https://takshashila.org.in/an-elephant-in-the-room-recent-case-of-whatsapp-fallout-amongst-indian-users/</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref5">[5]</a> Manur, A. (2018). How to Regulate Internet Platforms Without Breaking them . Retrieved from AsiaGlobal Online: <a href="https://www.asiaglobalonline.hku.hk/regulate-internet-platforms-antitrust-competition/">https://www.asiaglobalonline.hku.hk/regulate-internet-platforms-antitrust-competition/</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref6">[6]</a> Ibid</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref7">[7]</a> Nègre, A. (2021). How Can Funders Promote Interoperable Payments? Retrieved from CGAP Blog: <a href="https://www.cgap.org/blog/how-can-funders-promote-interoperable-payments">https://www.cgap.org/blog/how-can-funders-promote-interoperable-payments</a>;</p>
<p dir="ltr">Cook, W. (2017). Rules of the Road: Interoperability and Governance. Retrieved from CGAP Blog: <a href="https://www.cgap.org/blog/rules-road-interoperability-and-governance">https://www.cgap.org/blog/rules-road-interoperability-and-governance</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref8">[8]</a> Punjabi, A., & Ojha, S. (n.d.). PPI Interoperability: A roadmap to seamless payments infrastructure. Retrieved from PWC: <a href="https://www.pwc.in/consulting/financial-services/fintech/payments/ppi-interoperability.html">https://www.pwc.in/consulting/financial-services/fintech/payments/ppi-interoperability.html</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref9">[9]</a> Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on a Single Market For Digital Services (Digital Services Act) . (n.d.). Retrieved from European Union: <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?qid=1608117147218&uri=COM%3A2020%3A825%3AFIN">https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?qid=1608117147218&uri=COM%3A2020%3A825%3AFIN</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref10">[10]</a> European Electronic Communications Code (EECC). (n.d.). Retrieved from <a href="https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/339a9-european-electronic-communications-code-eecc/">https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/339a9-european-electronic-communications-code-eecc/</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref11">[11]</a> Stigler Center News Stigler Committee on Digital Platforms: Final Report. (n.d.). Retrieved from Chicago Booth: <a href="https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/news-and-media/committee-on-digital-platforms-final-report">https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/news-and-media/committee-on-digital-platforms-final-report</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref12">[12]</a> Brown, I. (n.d.). Interoperability as a tool for competition regulation. CyberBRICS.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref13">[13]</a> Facebook is hard at work to merge its family of messaging apps: Zuckerberg. (2020). Retrieved from Business Standard: <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/facebook-is-hard-at-work-to-merge-its-family-of-messaging-apps-zuckerberg-120103000470_1.html">https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/facebook-is-hard-at-work-to-merge-its-family-of-messaging-apps-zuckerberg-120103000470_1.html</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref14">[14]</a>Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. (n.d.). Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Intermediary_Guidelines_and_Digital_Media_Ethics_Code_Rules-2021.pdf">https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Intermediary_Guidelines_and_Digital_Media_Ethics_Code_Rules-2021.pdf</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref15">[15]</a> Menn, Joseph. 2021. "WhatsApp sues Indian government over new privacy rules - sources." Reuters. Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/exclusive-whatsapp-sues-india-govt-says-new-media-rules-mean-end-privacy-sources-2021-05-26/">https://www.reuters.com/world/india/exclusive-whatsapp-sues-india-govt-says-new-media-rules-mean-end-privacy-sources-2021-05-26/</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref16">[16]</a> Raghavan, M. (2021). India’s New Intermediary & Digital Media Rules: Expanding the Boundaries of Executive Power in Digital Regulation. Retrieved from Future of Privacy Forum:<a href="https://fpf.org/blog/indias-new-intermediary-digital-media-rules-expanding-the-boundaries-of-executive-power-in-digital-regulation/">https://fpf.org/blog/indias-new-intermediary-digital-media-rules-expanding-the-boundaries-of-executive-power-in-digital-regulation/</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref17">[17]</a>Net Neutrality. (n.d.). Retrieved from Department of Telecommunications: <a href="https://dot.gov.in/net-neutrality">https://dot.gov.in/net-neutrality</a>;</p>
<p dir="ltr">Parsheera, S. (n.d.). Net Neutrality In India: From Rules To Enforcement. Retrieved from Medianama: <a href="https://www.medianama.com/2020/05/223-net-neutrality-india-rules-enforcement/">https://www.medianama.com/2020/05/223-net-neutrality-india-rules-enforcement/</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref18">[18]</a>The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. (n.d.). Retrieved from: <a href="http://164.100.47.4/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/Asintroduced/373_2019_LS_Eng.pdf">http://164.100.47.4/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/Asintroduced/373_2019_LS_Eng.pdf</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref19">[19]</a> Consultation Paper on Review of Interconnection Usage Charges, 2019. TRAI.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Mobile Number Portability. (n.d.). Retrieved from TRAI: <a href="https://www.trai.gov.in/faqcategory/mobile-number-portability">https://www.trai.gov.in/faqcategory/mobile-number-portability</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref20">[20]</a> Data Transfer Project. (2018). Retrieved from <a href="https://datatransferproject.dev/">https://datatransferproject.dev</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref21">[21]</a> Aulakh, G. (n.d.). How messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat can make money while offering free texting and calling. Retrieved from Economic Times: <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/how-messaging-apps-like-whatsapp-wechat-can-make-money-while-offering-free-texting-and-calling/articleshow/62666227.cms">https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/how-messaging-apps-like-whatsapp-wechat-can-make-money-while-offering-free-texting-and-calling/articleshow/62666227.cms</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref22">[22]</a> (2019). Report of the Competition Law Review Committee. Ministry of Corporate Affairs.<br /><br /></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Bibliography</strong></p>
<ol><li>Master Direction on Issuance and Operation of Prepaid Payment Instruments. (n.d.). Retrieved from Reserve Bank of India: <a href="https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_ViewMasDirections.aspx?id=11142">https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_ViewMasDirections.aspx?id=11142</a></li><li>Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability. (2021). Retrieved from Electronic Frontier Foundation: <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy">https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy</a></li><li>Sullivan, M. (2021). How interoperability could end Facebook’s death grip on social media. Retrieved from Fast Company: <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90609208/social-networking-interoperability-facebook-antitrust">https://www.fastcompany.com/90609208/social-networking-interoperability-facebook-antitrust</a></li><li>Tinworth, A. (n.d.). Why Messenger Interoperability is a digital canary in the coal mine. Retrieved from NEXT: <a href="https://nextconf.eu/2019/06/why-messenger-interoperability-is-a-digital-canary-in-the-coal-mine/#gref">https://nextconf.eu/2019/06/why-messenger-interoperability-is-a-digital-canary-in-the-coal-mine/#gref</a></li></ol>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/interoperability-and-portability-as-a-lever-to-enhance-user-choice-and-privacy-in-messaging-platforms'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/interoperability-and-portability-as-a-lever-to-enhance-user-choice-and-privacy-in-messaging-platforms</a>
</p>
No publisherKamesh ShekarMessagingInteroperabilitySocial Media2021-07-06T11:37:05ZBlog EntryTwitter's India troubles show tough path ahead for digital platforms
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dw-june-21-2021-aditya-sharma-twitter-india-troubles-show-tough-path-ahead-for-digital-platforms
<b>Twitter is in a standoff with Indian authorities over the government's new digital rules. Critics see the rules as an attempt to curb free speech, while others say more action is needed to hold tech giants accountable.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog by Aditya Sharma <a class="external-link" href="https://www.dw.com/en/twitters-india-troubles-show-tough-path-ahead-for-digital-platforms/a-57980916">was published by DW</a> on 21 June 2021. Torsha Sarkar was quoted.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Intermediary.jpg/@@images/08eb8de3-4fd6-408f-94d2-3f202da0e730.jpeg" alt="Intermediary" class="image-right" title="Intermediary" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter holds a relatively low share of India's social media market. But, since 2017, the huge nation has emerged as Twitter's fastest-growing market, becoming critical to its global expansion plans.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In February, the Indian government <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/india-targets-twitter-whatsapp-with-new-regulatory-rules/a-56708566">introduced new guidelines</a> to regulate digital content on rapidly growing social media platforms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The so-called Intermediary Guidelines are aimed at regulating content on internet platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, making them more accountable to legal requests for the removal of posts and sharing information about the originators of messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Employees at these companies can be held criminally liable for not complying with the government's requests.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Large social media firms must also set up mechanisms to address grievances and appoint executives to liaise with law enforcement under the new rules, as well as appoint an India-based compliance officer who would be held criminally liable for the content on their platforms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian government says the rules empower "users who become victims of defamation, morphed images, sexual abuse," among other online crimes. It also said that the rules seek to tackle the problem of disinformation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But critics fear that the rules could be used to target government opponents and make sure dissidents don't use the platforms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media companies were expected to comply with the new rules by May 25.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some Indian media reports have recently said that Twitter lost its status as an "intermediary" and the legal protection that came with it, due to its failure to comply with the new rules.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Failure to comply and serious implications</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apar Gupta, the executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a New Delhi-based digital rights advocacy group, says failure to comply with the rules could threaten Twitter's India operations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Not complying with the rules would pose a real risk to Twitter's operational environment," he told DW.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"It will need to go to court to defend itself each time criminal prosecutions are launched against it," he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The first case against Twitter was filed last week, where it was charged with failing to stop the spread of a video on its platform that allegedly incited "hate and enmity" between two religious groups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>'Heavy censorship'</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Gupta says adhering to all the government's demands would substantially change Twitter.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Absolute compliance would mean heavy censorship of individual tweets, removal of the manipulated media tags, and blocking/suspension of accounts at the government's behest," he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Torsha Sarkar, policy officer at the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, fears that Twitter might at times be compelled to overcomply with government demands, threatening user rights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This can be either by over-complying with flawed information requests, thereby selling out its users, or taking down content that offends the majoritarian sensibilities," she told DW.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last week, three special rapporteurs appointed by a top UN human rights body expressed "serious concerns" that certain parts of the guidelines "may result in the limiting or infringement of a wide range of human rights."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They urged New Delhi to review the rules, adding that they did not conform to India's international human rights obligations and could threaten the digital rights of Indians.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter's balancing act</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is not the first time that Twitter has been accused of giving in to government pressure to censor content on its platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the height of the long-running farmer protests, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/farmer-protests-india-blocks-prominent-twitter-accounts-detains-journalists/a-56411354">Twitter blocked hundreds of tweets</a> and accounts, including the handle of a prominent news magazine. It subsequently unblocked them following public outrage.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The US company stopped short of complying with demands to block the accounts of activists, politicians and journalists, arguing that such a move would "violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to local media reports, Twitter's Indian executives were reportedly threatened with fines and imprisonment if the accounts were not taken down.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Special police notify Twitter offices</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last month, the labeling of a tweet by a politician from the ruling BJP as "manipulated media" prompted a special unit of the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/india-police-visit-twitter-offices-over-manipulated-tweet/a-57650193">Delhi police to visit Twitter's offices</a> in the capital and neighboring Gurgaon. Police notified the offices about an investigation into the labeling of the post.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter India's managing director, Manish Maheswari, was said to have been asked to appear before the police for questioning, according to media reports.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some Twitter employees have refused to talk about the ongoing tensions for fear of government reprisals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Such kind of intimidation does not happen every day. (But) Everyone at Twitter India is terrified," people familiar with the matter told DW on the condition of anonymity.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Big Tech VS sovereign power?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Those calling for better regulation of tech giants say transnational <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/india-social-media-conflict/a-57702394">social media companies like Twitter lack accountability</a>, blaming them for the alleged inaction against online abuse and disinformation campaigns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The problem with these rules is that they centralize greater power toward the government without providing for the objective benefit of rights toward users," Gupta said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"If Twitter were to comply with these rules, it would make a bad situation worse," he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter is unlikely to ditch a major market such as India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sarkar from the Centre for Internet and Society said "It might be difficult to say how the powers of big tech are going to collide with sovereign nations, especially in light of flawed legal interventions around the world."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dw-june-21-2021-aditya-sharma-twitter-india-troubles-show-tough-path-ahead-for-digital-platforms'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dw-june-21-2021-aditya-sharma-twitter-india-troubles-show-tough-path-ahead-for-digital-platforms</a>
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No publisherAditya SharmaSocial MediaInternet GovernanceIntermediary LiabilityInformation Technology2021-06-26T02:54:19ZNews Item CIS’ Comments to the Christchurch Call
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tanaya-rajwade-elonnai-hickok-and-raouf-kundil-peedikayil-october-31-2019-comments-to-christchurch-call
<b>In the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron co-chaired the Christchurch Call to Action in May 2018 to “bring together countries and tech companies in an attempt to bring to an end the ability to use social media to organise and promote terrorism and violent extremism.”</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Fifty one supporters, including India, and eight tech companies have jointly agreed to a set of non-binding commitments and ongoing collaboration to eliminate violent and extremist content online. Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Google, and Amazon are all among the online service provider signatories that released a joint statement welcoming the call and committing to a nine-point action plan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Call has been hailed by many as a step in the right direction, as it represents the first collaboration between governments and the private sector companies to combat the problem of extremist content online at this scale. However, the vagueness of the commitments outlined in the Call and some of the proposed mechanisms have raised concerns about the potential abuse of human rights by both governments and tech companies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This response is divided into two parts - Part One examines the call through the lens of human rights, and Part Two thinks through the ways in which India can adhere to the commitments in the Call, and compares the current legal framework in India with the commitments outlined in the Call.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/cis2019-comments-to-the-christchurch-call">comments here</a>. The comments were prepared by Tanaya Rajwade, Elonnai Hickok, and Raouf Kundil Peedikayil and edited by Gurshabad Grover and Amber Sinha.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tanaya-rajwade-elonnai-hickok-and-raouf-kundil-peedikayil-october-31-2019-comments-to-christchurch-call'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tanaya-rajwade-elonnai-hickok-and-raouf-kundil-peedikayil-october-31-2019-comments-to-christchurch-call</a>
</p>
No publisherTanaya Rajwade, Elonnai Hickok, and Raouf Kundil PeedikayilFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial MediaInternet Governance2019-11-04T14:13:13ZBlog EntrySeminar on “Evolution of communication: Social Media & Beyond”
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d
<b>Sunil Abraham will be a speaker at this event organized by TRAI on March 15 at Hotel Radisson Blu GRT, Near Airport, Chennai. Sunil will be speaking on How should Internet Giants- Social Media, Search engines and ad tech be Regulated.</b>
<p>Click to <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/seminar-on-evolution-of-communication">view the agenda</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-03-07T14:52:09ZNews ItemRural Indians don’t trust messages on WhatsApp blindly: Survey
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-october-19-2018-vidhi-choudhary-rural-indians-don-t-trust-messages-on-whatsapp-blindly-survey
<b>Only 8% of the respondents marked 10 as their trust score on a scale of 1-10, where 1 stands for complete distrust and 10 for complete trust, in information received on WhatsApp, found a survey.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Vidhi Choudhary was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rural-indians-don-t-trust-messages-on-whatsapp-blindly-survey/story-6uzWTfNIgStWbri9JDnK0I.html">Hindustan Times</a> on October 19, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp users in rural India do not blindly trust messages they receive on the messaging service, according to a limited survey across 14 states, a finding that must provide some cheer to law enforcement officials and policymakers trying to combat fake news and rumours, and to the messaging service itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Only 8% of the respondents marked 10 as their trust score on a scale of 1-10, where 1 stands for complete distrust and 10 for complete trust, in information received on WhatsApp, found a survey conducted by Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), a New Delhi-based non-profit organisation that seeks to find solutions to bridge the digital divide.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To be sure, the Digital Empowerment Foundation survey titled “What’s up Rural India?” recorded responses from only 1018 rural users in 14 states including districts like Bettiah in Bihar, Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, Chamba, Narendra Nagar and Pratapnagar in Uttarakhand, Betul and Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Musiri in Tamil Nadu, Memboobnagar, Vikarabad and Warangal in Telangana and Alwar and Barmer in Rajasthan among others, and only a larger survey can authoritatively weigh in on the trust people have in the messaging service.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since May, at least 30 people have been lynched by mobs with rumours on the messaging platform being responsible for some of the incidents. Fake videos and rumours of child-lifting circulated via WhatsApp have triggered lynchings in at least eight states. The Indian government wrote to WhatsApp about the incidents and the platform, owned by Facebook Inc made some changes, including a clear labelling of forwarded messages as well as limiting the number of forwards to tackle the spread of rumours and Fake News.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp has over 200 million users in India, its largest market, and India’s chief election commissioner OP Rawat said in a recent interview with Hindustan Times that attempts to influence poll outcomes using technology was the biggest challenge before his organization, which is responsible for the conduct of polls in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to the DEF survey, almost 70% of the respondents rated their trust score between 1-5. “This composition of trust is unlike what I’d imagined. Users in rural India have exercised restraint in believing the information they get from WhatsApp. They still prefer to check with peers and local communities about what is right and wrong,” said Osama Manzar, founder and director at DEF.</p>
<div class="rural_padding" style="text-align: justify; ">
<div class="rural_headline">What’s up, rural India?</div>
<div class="rural_subheadline">Survey on WhatsApp by Digital Empowerment Foundation:</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://www.hindustantimes.com/static/ht2018/10/rural_India_whatsapp.jpg" width="100%" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is heartening to know people in rural India are sceptical about messages shared on WhatsApp, said Sunil Abraham co-founder at think-tank Centre for Internet and Society. “It’s a societal learning curve. Most of these users have been exposed to WhatsApp over the last one year. Previous incidents where trust has been misused is perhaps a reason for their apprehension. Their scepticism will grow in the light of all the disappointments that have happened. Ask them this question in 2019 and the numbers are likely to rise further,” added Abraham. Statistics in terms of overall usage of WhatsApp shows that about 66% rural users interviewed in the survey spend 1-4 hours on the messaging app daily, 46% receive between 11-60 messages in a day, 38% are active on upto five WhatsApp groups with a majority being in groups with friends, followed by work colleagues, and family. Experts said the usage of WhatsApp in rural India is surprisingly high. The high usage can be attributed to the rise of smartphone penetration in these areas.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A majority of 88% users also knew what a WhatsApp forward is and 45% said they receive between 6-20 forwarded messages in a day. In July, WhatsApp launched a label to identify forwarded messages in a bid to combat fake news and the spread of misinformation globally, including India. It later set a limit to the use of forwarded messages to 5 chats in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In response to an email query, WhatsApp said it has made product changes that make it clear when users have received forwarded messages and also provided greater controls for group administrators to help reduce the spread of unwanted messages in private chats.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“WhatsApp is a private messaging service for communicating with friends and family... We are working together with a number organisations to step up our education efforts so that people know how to spot fake news and hoaxes circulating online. It is heartening to note that these efforts are making a difference and keeping our users safe,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Among other findings, about 40% of respondents said they were part of WhatsApp groups created by members or representatives of political parties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“This reflects the level of campaigning and penetration of political parties. Villages are always politically sensitive and also interested in politics,” said Manzar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Interestingly, the survey noted that 63% of the respondents were not on the service in 2014. WhatsApp will play a key role in the campaigns for 2019 as this will be the first election with a host of rural India users actively part of the service.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Data shows that the share of active WhatsApp users in rural India has doubled since 2017, according to a survey done by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Abraham added this means political parties have a “direct channel” of communication with a “huge percentage of the voter base”.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-october-19-2018-vidhi-choudhary-rural-indians-don-t-trust-messages-on-whatsapp-blindly-survey'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-october-19-2018-vidhi-choudhary-rural-indians-don-t-trust-messages-on-whatsapp-blindly-survey</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaInternet Governance2018-10-28T06:21:34ZNews ItemBrazil’s experience a red flag for WhatsApp in Indian polls, say experts
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-vidhi-choudhary-october-21-2018-brazil-s-experience-a-red-flag-for-whatsapp-in-indian-polls-say-experts
<b>Data shows that the share of active WhatsApp users in rural India has doubled since 2017, according to a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Vidhi Choudhary was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/brazil-s-experience-a-red-flag-for-whatsapp-in-indian-polls-say-experts/story-lUpEk5lM4Ns8TQSU9kIe0O.html">Hindustan Times</a> on October 21, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instant messaging service WhatsApp will have to put more safeguards in place to avoid its misuse in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,experts say. Some point to the experience in the recent elections in Brazil,where the Facebook-owned platform battled allegations on its use to influence the popular vote, with mass-WhatsApp messages pushing anti-leftist propaganda.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“There is no easy way to say this but the likelihood of a WhatsApp scandal in the run-up to the 2019 elections in India is imminent. I won’t be surprised if there is already something similar taking place in India. That’s because there is no way to control the message that is being shared on the platform. The only way to stop this is by revoking the end-to-end encryption which will impair the privacy WhatsApp users enjoy,” said lawyer Rahul Matthan, partner at the law firm Trilegal and author of Privacy 2.0, which traces the historic origin and current debates on privacy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp has over 200 million users in India, its largest market. The absence of a data protection law in India (one is in the works but is unlikely to be passed before the elections) only adds to this problem, although this transcends WhatsApp.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The large scale sale of phone numbers, and subsequent bombardment of messages, without seeking consent is also a reminder that we urgently need rules to limit the use of personal data for political campaigns. Europe’s law, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), for example, puts strict limits on direct marketing, including by political parties and campaigners. Yet India is approaching its own elections without any effective data protection rules in place,” said Amba Kak, public policy adviser at web browser Mozilla.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The election commission is aware of the challenge. In an interview to Hindustan Times, chief election commissioner OP Rawat said the <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/attempts-to-sway-polls-with-tech-biggest-challenge-chief-election-commissioner-op-rawat/story-ku28LSMsHpIvNVtUbJBWyL.html">biggest challenge for the ECI right now </a>is posed by technology firms that have wherewithal to influence voters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to a survey conducted by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rural-indians-don-t-trust-messages-on-whatsapp-blindly-survey/story-6uzWTfNIgStWbri9JDnK0I.html">reported by the HT earlier this week</a>, 40% of rural users of the messaging platform were part of WhatsApp groups created by members or representatives of political parties. A third of the users spend between one hour and four hours on the app daily, the survey found. “This reflects the level of campaigning and penetration of political parties. Villages are always politically sensitive and also interested in politics,” the HT report said, quoting DEF’s Osama Manzar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The survey noted that 63% of the respondents were not on the service in 2014. The share of active WhatsApp users in rural India has doubled since 2017, according to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A possible solution is to make sure voters are consistently informed about the issue of misinformation and fake news in India, added Matthan. “WhatsApp should continue to build a concerted marketing campaign against fake news to make voters aware, so that they exercise restraint while sending and sharing messages received from other users. The only trouble is if the message is received from a trusted ally, then one is likely to believe it. That’s why there is no absolute way to ensure shadow campaigns are not circulated on WhatsApp,” he explained.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Facebook-owned platform has said in an earlier statements that it believes this is a challenge that requires government, civil society and technology companies to work together. “Our strategy has been twofold. First, to give people the controls and information they need to stay safe; and second, to work proactively to prevent misuse on WhatsApp,” WhatsApp said in the statement in July.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In July, WhatsApp launched a label to identify forwarded messages in a bid to combat fake news and the spread of misinformation globally, including India. It later set a limit to the use of forwarded messages to five chats in India. After that WhatsApp took out full-page advertisements in Indian newspapers offering “easy tips” to distinguish between fact and fiction as it battles rising pressure to curb the spread of misinformation in India after the lynching of at least 30 people in the country since May, with at least some being caused by rumours forwarded over phones.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, director at the think tank Centre for Internet and Society said WhatsApp could employ a network of fact checkers and explore “in application education”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Local authorities in various parts of the country have resorted to Internet shutdowns to counter incidents of violence triggered by rumours on WhatsApp. Law firm Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), based in New Delhi, has tracked down 116 Internet shutdowns across India in 2018 alone. In 2017, India reported 79 shutdowns; in 2016, the number was 31 and in 2012 it was just three. The rise from three shutdowns in 2012 to more than 100 this year marks a 3,766% surge. “State and central government and local authorities might consider this a solution. But a shutdown is completely against freedom of speech and that’s our view,” said an SFLC spokesperson. WhatsApp users in rural India do not blindly trust messages they receive on the messaging service, according to the DEF survey.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-vidhi-choudhary-october-21-2018-brazil-s-experience-a-red-flag-for-whatsapp-in-indian-polls-say-experts'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-vidhi-choudhary-october-21-2018-brazil-s-experience-a-red-flag-for-whatsapp-in-indian-polls-say-experts</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaInternet Governance2018-10-28T06:06:19ZNews ItemCentre draws red lines for Whatsapp over fake news, says must comply with Indian laws
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-21-2018-centre-draws-red-lines-for-whatsapp-over-fake-news-says-must-comply-with-indian-laws
<b>In a meeting with WhatsApp’s CEO Chris Daniels, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said India put forward several demands, including that the company must have a grievance officer in India and have proper compliance of Indian laws.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nakul Sridhar was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/centre-draws-red-lines-for-whatsapp-over-fake-news-says-must-comply-with-indian-laws/story-Lcxosvi1gl11MZv3tVNQ2J.html">Hindustan Times</a> on August 21, 2018.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Union government on Tuesday told the Facebook-owned WhatsApp to comply with Indian law, set up an Indian entity, and appoint a grievance officer in India to who people can reach immediately.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The directive comes at a when the government has pulled up the company for fake news spread on the social media platform serving as a contributory factor in several incidents of mob lynching across the country.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, conveyed this to the global head of WhatsApp, Chris Daniels, who is in India this week. This is the first time that the government has spelt out its key expectations from the platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I told him there have been sinister developments like fake news and revenge porn, which are criminal and against Indian laws. I suggested three points: they must have a grievance officer in India; they must comply with Indian laws; and they must have a local, corporate entity in India,” Prasad said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Daniels, he added, had agreed to the three conditions. WhatsApp did not offer an independent confirmation or respond to questions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prasad said he also told Daniels that WhatsApp would have to comply with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines to start its payments services in India, saying that the firm would have to store the financial data it collects from India within the country.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After at least 30 lynchings in the past one year were linked to rumours and fake news spread through the WhatsApp platform, the IT ministry sent two notices to the company last month, asking it to curb the spread of such messages. WhatsApp’s chief operating officer, Matthew Idema, had met the IT ministry secretary Ajay Sawhneytowards the end of July to discuss the issue of fake news with the ministry and explain the steps it was taking in curbing its spread.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The application made it more difficult to forward media by removing shortcuts, limited the number of people a forwarded message can be sent to at a time to five, and introduced a ‘forwarded’ label for such messages after the push from the government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Explaining its broad approach, a top government functionary, who asked not to be named, said, “We cannot accept digital imperialism. India is an open society. We have embraced technology and innovation. But no one should think they can come and do as they like. Firms like WhatsApp must conform to our rules, laws, and address problems.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Reiterating his demand that WhatApp must find “a technological solution” to trace the origin of rumour-mongering messages, Prasad said, “It does not need rocket science to locate a message being circulated thousands and lakhs of times on the same day, on the same issue, in the same district and same state.” He said Daniels agreed to comply.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But experts believe that delivering on these demands will be challenging. “WhatsApp, according to my understanding, does not store metadata (such as phone number sent from) for text messages that are transmitted using their application or via the web client. Unfortunately, WhatsApp does not make this explicit in their public documentation,” said Sunil Abraham, founder of the think tank, Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Therefore, many governments erroneously believe that sources of specific messages can be determined by big data analysis similar to the analysis of SMS metadata from telecom operators,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Metadata includes information such as the sender and recipient, date and time. “Now it would also include whether the message is forwarded,” said Abraham.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-21-2018-centre-draws-red-lines-for-whatsapp-over-fake-news-says-must-comply-with-indian-laws'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-21-2018-centre-draws-red-lines-for-whatsapp-over-fake-news-says-must-comply-with-indian-laws</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaWhatsAppInternet Governance2018-08-27T14:24:51ZNews ItemWhatsApp races against time to fix fake news mess ahead of 2019 general elections
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-venkat-ananth-july-24-2018-whatsapp-races-against-time-to-fix-fake-news-mess-ahead-of-2019-general-elections
<b>On Friday, when WhatsApp announced that it would pilot a ‘five media-based forwards limit’ in India, the government came up with an unequivocal reminder.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Venkat Ananth was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/whatsapp-races-against-time-to-fix-fake-news-mess-ahead-of-2019-general-elections/articleshow/65112280.cms">Economic Times</a> on July 24, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“When rumours and fake news get propagated by mischief mongers, the medium used for such propagation cannot evade responsibility and accountability. If they remain mute spectators, they are liable to be treated as abettors and thereafter face consequent legal action,” noted a ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) statement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The statement also said there was a need for bringing in traceability and accountability, “when a provocative/inflammatory message is detected and a request is made by law enforcement agencies.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Significantly, MeitY took aim at WhatsApp’s core end-to-end encryptionbased product feature and its oft-quoted and reiterated commitment to privacy. It was specific, going beyond the usual “do more” requests.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The stand also poses an interesting dilemma for the messenger service. How can it act while protecting its privacy commitment?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It is practical ly impossible for WhatsApp to regulate content in the peer-to-peer encrypted environment it is set up in,” says Rahul Matthan, partner, Trilegal. “An encrypted platform is what we want. The government is trying to maintain a strict and difficult balance. The government tends to err on the side of violating civil liberties over offering privacy to innocent users. The WhatsApp case is going in that direction.”</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">No Longer Low-Key</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, its largest market, WhatsApp has benefitted from quietly operating in the shadows of its more popular parent, Facebook, growing to a currently active user base of 200 million.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, in the last six months, while it continues to be perceived as an asset by politicos for outreach and propaganda, WhatsApp is now increasingly being tapped by the bad guys to disseminate deliberate misinformation, rumour mongering and fake news. And not the Donald Trump kind either.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is leading to loss of lives on the ground, through lynchings, kidnappings and related crimes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp spokesperson Carl Woog says, “The recent acts of violence in India have been heartbreaking and reinforce the need for government, civil society and technology companies to work together to keep people safe.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“By focusing on solutions to fake news inside our smartphones, we are ignoring a tougher problem that requires several complementary solutions,” says Apar Gupta, a Delhi-based lawyer and cofounder of the Internet Freedom Foundation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Let us not forget that a platform is not responsible for policing.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But the general public and government perception — and, to some extent, concern — remains that WhatsApp has been slow to react to these situations.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">To Police or Not to Police</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Interestingly, the government and ruling party realise WhatsApp could be pivotal to their fortunes in the next electoral cycle — in the run-up to Elections<br />2019.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The government is coming under increased pressure to act on these lynchings, which is why it is taking a shootthe-messenger kind of an approach,” says Matthan. “An unsophisticated government would have advocated a blanket ban on the source. But here, the government, it appears, wants to regulate tech by having access to your device, through an app, in the case of the (telecom regulator) Trai DND app to battle spam.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is also why WhatsApp has intensified its outreach efforts. Over the past 10 days, a team of its US and India-based executives have been meeting key stakeholders in Delhi and Mumbai, including the Election Commission, political parties, the Reserve Bank of India, banks and civil society, as ET reported last week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The team includes public policy manager Ben Supple, senior director, customer operations, Komal Lahiri and WhatsApp India communication manager Pragya Misra Mehrishi. They are now expected to meet key government officials from MeitY from Monday, sources say.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The intense outreach efforts is essentially linked to WhatsApp wanting to protect its payments play in India,” says a Delhi-based public policy professional, who did not want to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It (WhatsApp) is really worried about Google’s efforts with Tez and the gap that will only widen if the government delays grant of permission.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp is stressing some key points while reinforcing the steps it is taking to counter challenges. One, the best practices of using the platform. Two, the need to work together to prevent abuse of WhatsApp, and three, most importantly, to educate people about the best ways of using the platform. WhatsApp was primarily designed for private, oneon-one messaging or group chats among acquaintances, not for mass broadcast, which parties resort to during elections.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp says it is working on a warfooting to tackle the problems. It has introduced product changes to counter user behaviour. There’s more control, where a group ‘admin’ can restrict users who can send messages to the group, modify a group icon or edit description, a feature for which it has taken a leaf out of rival Telegram’s book. To counter fake news, it added a ‘forwarded’ label. And now, limited the forwarding to five in India, and 20 in the rest of the markets, a significant reduction from 250 prior to that.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the impact of these product tweaks is yet to be seen at an individual user level, the larger concern for WhatsApp today is the potential misuse of its platform to manipulate elections, a very real possibility next year.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Tipping Point</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The company’s noticeable change of tack comes after it noticed certain trends during the recent Karnataka elections, during which one of its executives spent a week in Bengaluru.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of the political parties, which a person aware of the developments in WhatsApp declined to name, was using “dozens of accounts to create thousands of groups,” as part of its campaign.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The party, the source says, was adding random numbers (approximately 100) to the group during creation. By random numbers, he meant people who did not know each other, something WhatsApp can identify using the metadata it collects when a user gives it access to its phone book. WhatsApp deems this behaviour ‘organised spamming.’</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“These were real people not necessarily known to each other,” says the person quoted above. “A specific account would be added to that group to be made the admin.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mostly, this admin was the number used to create these multiple groups or, in WhatsApp terms, the account that was not behaving the way private or group communication happens.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, the users would be a mix of fake accounts, which is a major red flag for WhatsApp. “The group starts with some bulk added users and then the real ones get bulk-added,” says the source. WhatsApp deems this practice a violation of its terms of service.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Company sources add that WhatsApp was able to detect these trends and proactively banned these users before they were able to add people. “In some cases, our systems didn’t catch this in time, but we were able to proactively prevent users from receiving such spam. That detection is now internalised and if someone tries to replicate that behaviour anywhere in the world, we will be able to detect them,” says another person familiar with developments at WhatsApp.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to several media reports, the BJP and the Congress too created over 30,000 groups for campaigning and organising efforts. To counter organised political spamming, WhatsApp has now begun using machine learning tools. WhatsApp can trace the last few messages in a group and block it entirely from the platform. At the detection level, WhatsApp checks for familiarity. “Do the persons know each other, or have they interacted before?” through metadata it possesses through phone numbers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second person quoted in the story says the company now focuses its detection “upstream,” that is, catching the user at the registration stage. “When you register on WhatsApp and immediately create a group, questions asked are, ‘Does this behaviour look like what a regular user does? Or does it look like users who have misused it in the past?’” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp, sources tell ET, is also using machine learning to detect sequential numbers that could be used to create these groups. “If they go and buy a phone number, they go to one carrier and its mostly sequential. If we notice 100 numbers with the same prefix have signed up, nearly 80 get automatically banned. What we do is feed these sequences, permutations and combinations to detect good/bad users,” the person quoted above says. “It learns millions of these combination signals on behaviour and help us make a decision.”</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Civil Society as a Key Layer</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp also sees an enabling role for civil society, especially for digital literacy. Its team has currently met seven non-governmental organisations, including digital literacy groups and others involved in the area of financial inclusion. This is part of its public policy efforts while also solidifying its payments play.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The level of responsibility for a platform is to not consciously cause — and, in fact, to take active measures to prevent — social harm,” says Gupta of IFF. “It has to be done without injury to end-to-end encryption, which offers safety and privacy to users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many products and product strategies can be adopted — from increasing media diversity on the platform to promoting auditing features that rely on partnerships with fact-checking organisations. We must demand accountability but resist the rhetorical attraction of technophobia.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As ET has reported, WhatsApp will adapt a fact-checking model, Verificado 2018, deployed during the recent Mexican presidential elections. Verificado proactively debunked fake news and misinformation on the platform. “The rumours were found to be very similar to India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Verificado was specifically focused on misinformation from candidates,” says the first person quoted in the story. “Plus, it helped effectively tackle misinformation during an earthquake in Mexico.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For WhatsApp, one of the key learnings from the Mexico elections was that it could look at the spam reports and categorise them as politics-related. The company, unsurprisingly, saw an increase in political spam in the buildup to election day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“They realised Verificado assists users to get help within the app. But it also aids news organisations, political parties, the government and users,” adds the person. The company is undertaking a similar exercise in Brazil, where 24 media outlets have come together under the Comprova initiative to fact-check viral content and rumours on WhatsApp.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society believes WhatsApp can further tweak its product to enable real-time checks. “They can enable a ‘fact check this’ button for users to upload content to a fact-checking database. If the content has already been fact-checked, the score can be displayed immediately. Alternatively, the fact-checking service can return the score at a later date,” he explains.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-venkat-ananth-july-24-2018-whatsapp-races-against-time-to-fix-fake-news-mess-ahead-of-2019-general-elections'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-venkat-ananth-july-24-2018-whatsapp-races-against-time-to-fix-fake-news-mess-ahead-of-2019-general-elections</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaWhatsAppInternet GovernancePrivacy2018-07-25T15:27:20ZNews Item'Full belief in fake texts shows cops not trusted'
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-18-2018-full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted
<b>Nilotpal Basu and Abhijeet Nath, an audio engineer and digital artiste, were beaten to death in Assam's Karbi Anglong last week based on rumours that they were kidnappers.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted/articleshow/64627080.cms">Times of India</a> on June 18, 2018. Pranesh Prakash was quoted. Inputs from Kim Arora.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A manipulated <a class="key_underline" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/whatsapp">WhatsApp</a> video is said to be the source of the panic. While it is just the medium and not the reason behind the killings, WhatsApp, with its 250-million users in India, allows rumours to travel farther than ever before. "In many non-urban areas, such WhatsApp videos are the first form in which people encounter the internet on their phones. They don't always go online and verify them," says Jency Jacob, who runs the fact checking outlet Boom. This gullibility can't be explained just by class or education, he says. "Technology makes it easy to believe what you want to believe and spread it," says Jacob.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The spread of internet gives wings to rumours in pockets where kidnappings are a real fear. The states where lynchings have been reported are also among those with high figures for child abductions. Technology has helped rumours travel greater distances with greater impunity, says Pranesh Prakash, fellow at Centre for Internet and Society, recalling that child abduction rumours led to a lynching in Tamil Nadu in 2015 too, but this time, "such rumours have spread all over South India". And as the Karbi Anglong killings show, to Assam as well.<br /><br />WhatsApp being an encrypted platform, police cannot trace the source of the rumourmongering. WhatsApp did not respond to TOI's queries on tracing origins of hate messages, but a spokesperson shared a statement saying they "block automated messages" and are educating people about spotting fake news and hoaxes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In many cases, law enforcement has failed at a more basic level. Child abduction is a disturbing rumour, designed to provoke an emotional reaction, but other anxieties are at work too. "Rumours tend to escalate when there is a lack of official information, and clearly many feel what happens to them and their children does not get attention at higher levels," says sociologist Dipankar Gupta. It also points to a collapse in the state's credibility, he says. So, Gupta says, "there is no seeking of justice, only reprisal."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-18-2018-full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-18-2018-full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaWhatsAppInternet Governance2018-06-26T01:21:04ZNews ItemWhy NPCI and Facebook need urgent regulatory attention
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-june-10-2018-sunil-abraham-why-npci-and-facebook-need-urgent-regulatory-attention
<b>The world’s oldest networked infrastructure, money, is increasingly dematerialising and fusing with the world’s latest networked infrastructure, the Internet. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/banking/why-npci-and-facebook-need-urgent-regulatory-attention/articleshow/64522587.cms">Economic Times</a> on June 10, 2018.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the network effects compound, disruptive acceleration hurtle us towards financial utopia, or dystopia. Our fate depends on what we get right and what we get wrong with the law, code and architecture, and the market.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet, unfortunately, has completely transformed from how it was first architected. From a federated, generative network based on free software and open standards, into a centralised, environment with an increasing dependency on proprietary technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In countries like Myanmar, some citizens misconstrue a single social media website, Facebook, for the internet, according to LirneAsia research. India is another market where Facebook could still get its brand mistaken for access itself by some users coming online. This is Facebook put so many resources into the battle over Basics, in the run-up to India’s network neutrality regulation. an odd corporation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On hand, its business model is what some term surveillance capitalism. On the other hand, by acquiring WhatsApp and by keeping end-toend (E2E) encryption “on”, it has ensured that one and a half billion users can concretely exercise their right to privacy. At the time of the acquisition, WhatsApp founders believed Facebook’s promise that it would never compromise on their high standards of privacy and security. But 18 months later, Facebook started harvesting data and diluting E2E.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In April this year, my colleague Ayush Rathi and I wrote in Asia Times that WhatsApp no longer deletes multimedia on download but continues to store it on its servers. Theoretically, using the very same mechanism, Facebook could also be retaining encrypted text messages and comprehensive metadata from WhatsApp users indefinitely without making this obvious.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">My friend, Srikanth Lakshmanan, founder of the CashlessConsumer collective, is a keen observer of this space. He says in India, “we are seeing an increasing push towards a bank-led model, thanks to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and its control over Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which is also known as the cashless layer of the India Stack.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">NPCI is best understood as a shape shifter. Arundhati Ramanathan puts it best when she says “depending on the time and context, NPCI is a competitor. It is a platform. It is a regulator. It is an industry association. It is a profitable non-profit. It is a rule maker. It is a judge. It is a bystander.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This results in UPI becoming, what Lakshmanan calls, a NPCI-club-good rather than a new generation digital public good. He also points out that NPCI has an additional challenge of opacity — “it doesn’t provide any metrics on transaction failures, and being a private body, is not subject to proactive or reactive disclosure requirements under the RTI.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Technically, he says, UPI increases fragility in our financial ecosystem since it “is a centralised data maximisation network where NPCI will always have the superset of data.” Given that NPCI has opted for a bank-led model in India, it is very unlikely that Facebook able to leverage its monopoly the social media market duopoly it shares with in the digital advertising market to become a digital payments monopoly.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, NCPI and Facebook both share the following traits — one, an insatiable appetite for personal information; two, a fetish for hypercentralisation; three, a marginal commitment to transparency, and four, poor track record as a custodian of consumer trust. The marriage between these like-minded entities has already had a dubious beginning.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Previously, every financial technology wanting direct access to the NPCI infrastructure had to have a tie-up with a bank. But for Facebook and Google, as they are large players, it was decided to introduce a multi-bank model. This was definitely the right thing to do from a competition perspective. But, unfortunately, the marriage between the banks and the internet giant was arranged by NPCI in an opaque process and WhatsApp was exempted from the full NPCI certification process for its beta launch.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Both NPCI and Facebook need urgent regulatory attention. A modern data protection law and a more proactive competition regulator is required for Facebook. The NPCI will hopefully also be subjected to the upcoming data protection law. But it also requires a range of design, policy and governance fixes to ensure greater privacy and security via data minimisation and decentralisation; greater accountability and transparency to the public; separation of powers for better governance and open access policies to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-june-10-2018-sunil-abraham-why-npci-and-facebook-need-urgent-regulatory-attention'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-june-10-2018-sunil-abraham-why-npci-and-facebook-need-urgent-regulatory-attention</a>
</p>
No publishersunilSocial MediaInternet GovernancePrivacy2018-06-12T02:07:42ZBlog EntryAllow admins to add users to online group chats only after permission: SFLC.in
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-1-2018-allow-admins-to-add-users-to-online-group-chats-only-after-permission-sflc-in
<b>SFLC.in -- a donor supported legal services organisation -- has written an open letter to messaging service providers like WhatsApp, Facebook and others, urging them to modify their platforms to ensure that users are not added to group chats without their permission.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/allow-admins-to-add-users-to-online-group-chats-only-after-permission-sflc-in/articleshow/64416022.cms">Times of India</a> on June 1, 2018.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">In its letter, Software Freedom Law Centre, India (SFLC.in) said any user with administrator rights can currently add another person to the group without the latter's permission.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the absence of a mechanism to prevent themselves from being added to groups that they would not like to participate in, users have no option but to manually exit the groups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This is a troubling state of affairs because users may be forcefully exposed to a range of subjectively undesirable content that they would never have signed up for otherwise, which can be particularly damaging, especially in situations where malicious actors attempt to intimidate, disparage, harass or harm individuals in any way," the letter said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The letter has also been co-signed by Digital Empowerment Foundation, Centre for Internet and Society and a few others.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Emails sent to Facebook, Tencent and others seeking their comments did not elicit any response.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">SFLC.in argued that the current format is an issue for many, including those belonging to minority and vulnerable groups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"While blocking malicious actors can usually help mitigate the damage to an extent, on online messaging services like yours, they are able to easily circumvent blocks by creating groups and adding their targets to these groups," it said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The problem is only made worse when personal information like phone numbers, user IDs and photographs are shared with a large number of users, which could open the doors to even greater abuse, it added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">SFLC.in argued that there are no adequate safeguards to prevent infringement of user rights and therefore, these platforms should take immediate steps to address this issue.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"...implement measures to make it so that being added to group conversations without permission is no longer a possibility. Not only will this greatly help in limiting abusive uses of your services, but it will also make users less wary of using the services, making the Internet a safer space for us all," it added.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-1-2018-allow-admins-to-add-users-to-online-group-chats-only-after-permission-sflc-in'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-1-2018-allow-admins-to-add-users-to-online-group-chats-only-after-permission-sflc-in</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaInternet Governance2018-06-26T02:03:19ZNews ItemElection Experiment Proves Facebook Just Doesn't Care About Fake News In India
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-visvak-may-30-2018-election-experiment-proves-facebook-just-doesnt-care-about-fake-news-in-india
<b>Much-hyped fact-checking initiative identified only 30 bits of fake news in month-long Karnataka campaign. Yup — 30!</b>
<p>The article by Visvak was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/05/30/election-experiment-proves-facebook-just-doesnt-care-about-fake-news-in-india_a_23446483/">Huffington Post</a> on May 30, 2018. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On April 16, a little less than a month before Karnataka went to the polls, Facebook <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/announcing-third-party-fact-checking-in-india/">announced</a> a partnership with Boom Live, an Indian fact-checking website, to fight fake news during the Karnataka assembly polls.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Five days before the partnership was announced, an embattled Mark Zuckerberg stood before the the US Congress. Under fire for having allowed his platform to be used to manipulate elections, he <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/09/transcript-mark-zuckerberg-testimony-to-congress-on-cambridge-analytica-509978">declared</a> that his company would do everything it could to protect the integrity of elections in India and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Facebook's press-release promised as much:</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">We have learned that once a story is rated as false, we have been able to reduce its distribution by 80%, and thereby improve accuracy of information on Facebook and reduce misinformation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yet, the pilot project in Karnataka suggests Facebook has a long way to go to keep Zuckerberg's promise. In an election cycle <a href="https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/fake-news-karnataka-assembly-election-2018-jihadi-murder">widely</a> <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/state/fake-news-rains-karnataka-goes-polls-669470.html">acknowledged</a> as rife with misinformation, fake polls and surveys, communally coloured rumours, and blatant lies peddled by campaigners, rating stories as "false" proved to be so difficult and time consuming that the Facebook partnership was only able to debunk 30 pieces of misinformation — 25 in the run-up to the polls, and 5 in the immediate aftermath — in the month long campaign.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The much-ballyhooed partnership added up to a small financial contribution from Facebook that allowed Boom to hire two fact-checkers, one in its offices in Mumbai and one based on the ground in Bengaluru, specifically to track the election. The fact-checkers were also given access to a Facebook dashboard that could be used to discover and counter misinformation on the platform.</p>
<p>Boom did not reveal the sum involved or allow HuffPost India access to the dashboard, citing a non-disclosure agreement. Facebook's representatives declined comment on a detailed questionnaire sent to them.</p>
<h2>A Gushing Sewer of Fake News</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Globally, Facebook's fact-checking initiative is a little over a year old, but the partnership with Boom marks its advent in India, the company's largest market.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"It's a late start, a very late start." says Pratik Sinha, co-founder of AltNews, another prominent fact-checking website. "But they're doing something now, which is good."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yet Govindraj Ethiraj, Founder-Editor of Boom Live, said the social networking giant's contribution to their fact-checking efforts was of limited utility. "Facebook's involvement didn't really help us," he said. "This was more about us helping them."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ethiraj identified Facebook-owned WhatsApp as the primary medium for the propagation of fake news during the Karnataka election. Each of the three major parties in the fray <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/fighting-fake-news-inside-karnatakas-virtual-campaign-trail-81042">reportedly</a> set up tens of thousands of groups on the platform in an effort to spread their message. Facebook is yet to figure out a way to allow fact-checkers into the platform without breaking the end-to-end encryption which makes it impossible for messages to be tracked.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But even on Facebook, which lends itself far more easily to tracking and monitoring, the tools that the company has built to track fake news are not particularly effective.</p>
<blockquote class="quoted" style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook allows advertisers to micro-target content at users using specific attributes, and users are unlikely to report content that agrees with their ideological biases.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In his office in the aging Sun Mill Compound in Mumbai's Lower Parel, Jency Jacob, Managing Editor of Boom logged into the dashboard and scrolled through the gushing sewer of user-flagged content pouring in from around the world: stories about dinosaur remains and ancient caves, tales of celebrities battling mysterious diseases, and ordinary people undergoing plastic surgeries to look like celebrities, mixed in with news – both real and fake – that users found objectionable. There's one about the rise in fuel prices and there's even a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/05/21/video-dalit-man-tied-flogged-beaten-to-death-in-gujarat-say-media-reports_a_23439751/">Huffpost India story</a>, about a Dalit being flogged to death in Gujarat. (The HuffPost India story, the editorial board can affirm, is true.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I can't claim that it doesn't affect me," admitted Jacob. "This morning, the first thing I saw after waking up was a video of a woman kicking a 3-year-old baby and slamming her on the ground. We are in the rush of it right now, but I don't think we will enjoy doing this all our lives."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"A lot of it is dependent on how users are reporting," Jacob continued, explaining that the dashboard tool relies on users to flag potentially "fake" news. "If the users aren't reporting it, it isn't going to come into the queue."</p>
<p>This is a blind spot as Facebook <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/14/technology/facebook-ads-congress.html">allows advertisers to micro-target</a> content at users using specific attributes, and users are unlikely to report content that agrees with their ideological biases.</p>
<h2>Everything But English</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook's dashboard cannot be used to report non-English content. In India, local language users outnumber English language users and more are coming online every day. The dashboard is also unable to filter stories relevant to a specific location, despite Facebook allowing advertisers to geo-target their advertisements with reasonable accuracy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jacob reckons the tool will get better at dealing with the Indian context over time. "This was always intended to be a pilot project. It will take them time to figure out how to get us more relevant leads," he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With not much help forthcoming from Facebook, Boom relied on its own tried and tested methods of tracking misinformation. Its fact-checkers monitored pages and websites known to be potential sources of fake news, told friends and family to forward anything suspicious they came across, and maintained their own reporting channel - a dedicated WhatsApp helpline for users to direct suspicious looking links.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These methods threw up about 4-5 actionable leads every day. To fact-check them, Boom deployed a combination of old school journalistic practices, such as getting fact-checkers to call sources, and tech tools like video and image matching software.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Fact-checking is a painstaking process that involves a great deal of manual effort.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">"The way we measure virality is a bit of a crude method. We check whether several of us have received it or not, and whether it is being shared on all three platforms."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Essentially, we are saying what we are saying is true, don't believe others," said Sinha. "That's a very arrogant position to take. To say that in a world full of information, there has to be a process where we take the audience from the claim to the truth. Gathering the information required to do that takes a lot of time."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Jacob, it sometimes takes 2-3 people working all day to fact-check a single video. And Boom only has 6 fact-checkers in all, including the two Facebook-funded hires. Given these constraints, they could act on only a fraction of the tip-offs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We were not looking at volume, but at impact," said Jacob, indicating that they focused their attention on misinformation that was going viral. "The way we measure virality is a bit of a crude method. We check whether several of us have received it or not, and whether it is being shared on all three platforms."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jacob admits that there were many more stories that they could have tackled, but he says that it was impossible to address them all with the limited resources available to them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sinha reckons that Facebook already has the technology to significantly alleviate the manpower issue. "If you upload a video to Facebook and there's a copyright violation, they pull the video. So they know how to match videos. If they leverage that technology and apply it to fake news, it'll reduce the mundane work we have to do by half," he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While Facebook's contribution to Boom's sourcing and fact-checking processes was minimal, it does seem to have had a significant impact on how fact-checks were disseminated. The Facebook dashboard allows fact-checkers to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/get-started/fact-checking">tag content with ratings</a> ranging from 'true' to 'false' with a few options in between and also attach their fact-check articles to the content. The platform then attempts to reduce distribution of the content and display the fact-check article to users whenever they encounter it on the news feed or attempt to share it.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Major Victory</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This system claimed its first major victory within a week of the partnership being announced when several major media outlets including NDTV India, India Today and Republic published a list of purported star campaigners for the Congress party that turned out to be fabricated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Boom rated the articles false and linked their <a href="https://www.boomlive.in/news-websites-report-fake-list-of-congress-star-campaigners-for-karnataka-polls/">fact-check</a>. Jacob could not verify if this reduced the articles' distribution by the 80% figure <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/05/hard-questions-false-news/">touted</a> by Facebook, but said there was a clear impact.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"NDTV India carried the story and we noticed that their traffic dropped after we linked our fact-check to their article," said Jacob. With traffic plummeting and users being shown fake news warnings when interacting with their content, most of the media houses that published the list either issued clarifications or took their articles down.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the initial success, Boom quickly ran into the limitations of the ratings system. Fact-checks could only be done on links and not on image, video, or text posts. Facebook eventually granted Boom access to image and video posts, but text posts are still beyond the purview of fact-checkers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While that change was likely a simple fix that only required a switch to be flipped, there are other restrictions on the ratings system that are unlikely to be lifted as easily.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From the beginning of the election cycle, false statements by prominent politicians - including the Prime Minister - were an everyday affair. As is the norm, they were faithfully reported by most media outlets without critique or context. Misinformation masquerading as opinion, wherein a set of legimitate facts are presented out of context to arrive at a blatantly false conclusion, was also a persistent feature during the polls. Such articles add to the whirlwind of campaign misinformation, but are exempted from the rating system.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">"Facebook needs to figure out a more aggressive model of showing the explanatory article to the reader."</p>
<p>Sinha believes that misinformation that falls into these grey areas cannot be laid at Facebook's door.</p>
<p>But Pranesh Prakash, Fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, said such restrictions were "extraordinarily stupid."</p>
<p>"As long as the distinction is made that the publication isn't msiquoting and the politician is saying something that is false - and that's easy enough to do - I can't think of a possible justification," he said, regarding false statements made by public figures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As for misleading opinion pieces Prakash said, "Most falsehoods are not just statements that present incorrect facts, but that present facts in an incorrect context. It's clearly the context that speaks to how people interpret facts. Fact checkers can't be people who only look at facts as black and white things."</p>
<p>Facebook's suggested method of dealing with such articles is to attach fact-check articles to them while assigning them a 'not eligible' rating. Jacob reckons that this is yet another blind spot.</p>
<p>"Facebook needs to figure out a more aggressive model of showing the explanatory article to the reader. The way it is designed now, with the article showing up below as a related link, not many people will bother to go and click on that."</p>
<h2>The Whatsapp Problem</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For all its flaws, the fact-checking initiative appears to be making an attempt at solving the problem of misinformation on Facebook's news feed. But the company hasn't even begun to address the 800-pound gorilla that is WhatsApp.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While Facebook has been castigated for playing fast and loose with privacy on its primary platform, the inherently better privacy features of the fully-encrypted Whatsapp platform have made it lethal when it comes to fake news. The lack of third party access, which has prevented Facebook from monetising WhatsApp chats - thus far - and security agencies from spying on them, has also made Whatsapp messages impossible to fact-check.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In Karnataka, WhatsApp was the primary vector for the spread of a series of fake polls, some of which were eventually picked up and published by mainstream media outlets. Unlike fake news that emerges on the Facebook and Twitter, it is impossible to trace the source of misinformation on Whatsapp.</p>
<blockquote class="quoted" style="text-align: justify; ">"Just as spam can be flagged and people can be barred if they're flagged as spammers, similarly, if people have been flagged as serial promoters of fake news, you can use that to nudge people's behaviour."</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"If Whatsapp had a trending list, our jobs would've been a lot easier," lamented Jacob. "By and large, we have figured out what goes viral on Facebook and Twitter. It might take a day to reach us, but eventually we catch anything that's going viral on these platforms. But Whatsapp is a black box."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prakash asserts that while encryption is a barrier, it does not make it impossible to police fake news on WhatApp. "Just as spam can be flagged and people can be barred if they're flagged as spammers, similarly, if people have been flagged as serial promoters of fake news, you can use that to nudge people's behaviour."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are indications that WhatsApp is attempting to develop features to tackle fake news. The platform has beta-tested features that would clearly <a href="https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-beta-for-android-2-18-67-whats-new/">identify</a>forwarded messages and <a href="https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-is-studying-some-methods-to-prevent-spam/">warn</a> users if a message has been forwarded more than 25 times. Jacob said that Facebook was working on a product that would throw up fact-check articles when a user interacts with a fake news URL on WhatsApp. If or when any of these features actually make it to users is a matter of conjecture.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prakash said the slow pace of progress on WhatsApp is just a reflection of the company's priorities. "It speaks to how American a company a Facebook is. Whatsapp is the real network for fake news in India, but it gets the least amount of attention."</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-visvak-may-30-2018-election-experiment-proves-facebook-just-doesnt-care-about-fake-news-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-visvak-may-30-2018-election-experiment-proves-facebook-just-doesnt-care-about-fake-news-in-india</a>
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No publisherAdminSocial MediaFacebookInternet Governance2018-05-31T22:56:48ZNews Item