Background

Summary of Recommendations
Checks on the Government
Develop a control on government actions against social media users and companies to ensure no misuse
of power, respect freedom of speech and maintain free flow of information in the democracy.

It becomes very necessary to maintain check and balance so that no misuse of power is conducted, and
social media companies get a fair ground to play.

Our recommendations include-

1. Updating RTI (Right to Information) process – India is already having RTI act which mandates
timely response to citizen requests for government information, but it should be updated so that it
can work vice versa i.e., in case government seek information or clarity from RTI about
any social media updates, policy by stating the reason for the requirement of that data.
A timely response of 2 weeks should be mandated in both the cases.

2. Combine Committee of Social Media Officials with Government Representatives-

India still lacks any committee that represents both the sides i.e., Government and Social Media Officials.
This committee will ensure proper discussion platform for both the parties to draft policies without any
hindrance and will also provide mechanism of new rule formation, that can only be achieved with
minimum two-third majority of committee members. Also, the committee will be headed by an elective
representative.

3. Introduction of Tribunal – A Tribunal will be a group of people responsible to manage

any grievance occurred during or after the committee’s decision. Tribunal will be dealing
with all the issues related to working of committee, decisions taken by the committee
members and to keep check and balances whether committee is working under the
rules or laws.

4. Introduction of a comprehensive law in Constitution to ensure rights of Social Media

Companies –
· Ref- https://www.loc.gov/collections/publications-of-the-law-library-of-congress/about-this-
collection/india.php
· social media companies are usually subject to the law of state their terms of service are simply
contracting between private parties. The 2000 Act and the Information Technology
(Intermediaries Guidelines) 2011 also establish limited immunity for social media and other
internet companies for any illegal content posted by third parties and outline the due diligence to
be observed by intermediary companies for removing such content. This creates a room to
 introduce a comprehensive law to protect social media autonomy in India which will make sure
that Social media is protected and can pitch their stance without any fear from government.

Checks on the social media audience

Audience Accountability Check: Audience/ users of the social media platform form the most significant
chunk of the stakeholders in social media. Social media is a platform where the general public shares
opinions, information, explores new business opportunities and entrepreneurial pursuits. But it has
been observed that the misuse of social media has also increased. These need to be regulated to ensure
seamless and positive use of social media platforms.

· Trolls and Online harassment: Online trolling and harassment can be kept in check
through crowd support. The facility of reporting derogatory or objectionable content is
available online. It can be used to support the policy to regulate such activity.
o Requirement: Content verification task force at social media platform to verify
and judge reported content.
o Any post or account reported by more than 1000 accounts to be suspended. The
content to be verified by the task force and judged upon reporting criteria.
Suppose content is found objectionable or derogatory, content to be removed,
and warning to be issued to account owner before resuming the account.
Account to be suspended after 3 such warnings. All accounts linked to the same
email-id to be suspended after it.
· National safety: In matters of national security, strict measures need to be taken to
ensure that the public platform of social media is not used to generate harm to the
safety of the public. Such data can be discovered and regulated through the support of
the crowd
o Requirement: Content verification task force at social media platform to verify
and judge reported content. The task force also contain representatives from the
national defense team.
o Any post or account reported by more than 800 accounts to be suspended. The
process to be the same as above. After resuming of account, its activity to be
monitored for 6 months. Account to be permanently suspended after 2 such
warnings. All accounts linked to the same email-id to be suspended after it.
Checks on social media powerhouses
- While adequate measures should be taken to ensure accountability of the government and the
public, we must keep the social media powerhouses in check. The safety of consumer data is a
growing concern evidenced by a huge chunk (tt%) of population making the move from
WhatsApp to Signal when Facebook announced a change in its policy on how it plans to
consume user data. Our primary objective is to protect consumer interest by preventing
exploitation of data by social media powerhouses and businesses. We recommend that
following action steps be taken to define limits for social media powerhouses:
- Appointment of a Nodal Compliance officer as a single point of contact for every organization
that wishes to run operations in India. This POC will maintain communication with the
government on a monthly basis or as and when required.
- With KYC becoming a mandate to use online payments and UPI, we recommend that the same
mechanism be put in place for all businesses that aim to contact their target group on social
media. Our research tells us that xx% of businesses running online are still not verified by the
parent company and this number can be increased to yy% within a short span of zz months once
this is mandated.
- Shifting from a long T&C to making a shorter version available, one that highlights all points
about the way social media companies/applications are consuming public data. This will
increase awareness by aa%.
- Releasing an annual transparency report that highlights all posts of public/government that have
been censored, taken down or adjusted to keep compliance intact. A similar program
implemented in bb country for cc social media has led to a decrease of dd%.
- Making information about all data of the checkpoints and storage locations of data public.
Around ee% of the major social media companies have their servers outside of the operating
country.