The Supreme Court needs to codify a standard matrix rather than rely solely on Govt recommendations
Privacy or personal freedoms and transgressions in exercising these rights have led to so many grey areas in the open democracy of the internet that it has now become incumbent upon the Supreme Court to lay down razor-sharp guidelines of what is safe and what is not. And after studied consideration, it now favours fixing accountability of intermediaries, such as WhatsApp and Facebook, when their platforms are used to threaten the integrity and sovereignty of the nation, encourage hate speeches and pornography and promote illegal trade of drugs and contraband. It has, therefore, asked the Government to file an affidavit within three weeks, outlining a strategy to get social media platforms to share information with law enforcement without compromising the privacy of citizens or national security. Now, this is the tricky part, completely surrendering the agency of monitoring to a ruling regime. The moot point here is that neither the Government nor the platform providers can walk the thin line, having overstepped it more than once themselves. The Government, which has used social media and its follower brigade to amp up its own position and muzzle that of others, is hardly expected to overlook its interests at a time when going digital is the easiest way to generate a swell of opinion and spread its propaganda. Can it really be righteous enough about separating strands of coercion and restriction? Social media giants, particularly Facebook, have had too many run-ins with stakeholders on accountability and clandestine data-sharing. Remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal that swung an electoral opinion and allegations of influencing the US elections and Brexit? As for trolls, Twitter is yet to demonstrably react to group bullyism impinging on the personal dignity of a single user although free conversations are meant to be an exchange of ideas, not a slanging match of slander. Who will decide what constitutes a national threat and what is democratic dissent? Giving the Government an upper hand might just obfuscate the real concern of a watchdog society justifying anything for the sake of national security. And social media firms sharing information under government pressure would not even be looked at as committing an offence.
Most importantly, who decides what privacy should be for the vast millions who have made smartphones a part of their lives? There’s no doubt that hate speech and fake news have diluted the empowering strength of the internet but regulation will always raise questions about whether it impinges on fundamental rights and freedoms. Yes, it is the duty of social media platforms to exercise powers to remove obnoxious material from their servers. They have done that job well by tracking and taking down videos of child pornography, abuse, harassment on a routine basis. But when it comes to crimes that propagate certain causes/interests, crucially the proliferation of fake news through forwarded messages at a scale never seen before, social media firms are at fault for the simple reason of being both reluctant and hesitant. The Government cannot be given absolute responsibility either. If it does want restrictions, an intricate framework of contexts and rules must be created to maintain objectivity. It should not be left to the authorities to interpret them in their own ways. There is a need to revisit Section 69 of the Information Technology Act. Most importantly, it is the top court which has to create an appropriate legal redress, not throw a sensitive matter in the deep end.
