Social

The Modi government at the Center in India will bring a new law to regulate social media and digital content in the next three months. Law Minister of India Ravi Shankar Prasad and Communications Minister of India Prakash Javadekar announced this at a press conference in Delhi.

Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Social media is doing business in India, they have done good business and strengthened the Indian people. But at the same time there have been complaints of irresponsible use of social media for the last several days.

According to the Modi government, over the past few years, there have been many complaints on social media like promoting violence, sharing obscene content, using other country's posts, the government has brought new guidelines to deal with it and in three months it A law will be made for this.

What are the guidelines?

Explaining the guidelines, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Social media is divided into 2 categories, one intermediary and the other signifcant social media intermediary. We will soon issue a notification of the user number for this. ''

"If a complaint is made about the dignity of the users, especially the dignity of women, then the content has to be removed within 24 hours of making the complaint."

He said that the law of significant social media will be implemented in three months.

Apart from this, social media companies will have to make a grievance redressal mechanism and also make the name of the officer handling the complaints public. This officer will register the complaint in 24 hours and resolve it in 15 days.

He said that Significant Social Media will have to appoint Chief Compliance Officer, Nodal Content Person and a Resident Grievance Officer, all of which will be in India. Apart from this, they will also have to issue a report related to the disposal of complaints every month.

Account verification will be necessary

Modi government said, furthermore, to ensure that fake accounts are not created on social media, companies will be required to make the verification process mandatory.

Who has made a post on the social media platform, the company has to give this information on the court's order or the government's asking.

Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "On asking any court or government, they have to tell who started a post. If started from outside India then who started in India. This should be in relation to India's sovereignty, national security, relations with foreign states, rape etc. ''

However, social media companies have often argued that in order to provide such information, they have to break the end to end encryption and save the user's data, which would violate their privacy. End to end encryption means that no third (even company) can hear or read the conversation between two people.

In response to a question related to how the company can provide this information, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "We are not asking to break encryption, we are just asking who started it."

He cited some guidelines of the Supreme Court that these steps are necessary to prevent the spread of pornographic material, rape, gang rape videos. Apart from this, he said that many news reports of social media posts have also come out from outside the country.

Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the purpose of all these rules is to give more power in the hands of the people. Talking in detail on this, he said, "If a significant post is removed, the company will have to give a reason for it."

He said that all these things will be asked by the platforms to create a mechanism.

Ravi Shankar Prasad also gave users data on different social media platforms. According to him, there are 53 crores of WhatsApp in India, 44.8 crores of YouTube, 41 crores of Facebook, 21 crores of Instagram, 1.75 crores of Twitter users.

Also rules for OTT and digital platforms

Modi government will also bring legislation to regulate OTT platform.

India's Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said, "There will be a three-tier mechanism for the OTT platform. OTT platforms and digital media will have to provide information about themselves, and they will have to create a grievance redressal mechanism.

According to Javadekar, the government had earlier met OTT companies and asked them to create a self-regulation but they could not do so.

OTT and digital news platforms will have to provide their details as they work from where the new rules come. Apart from this, a portal will have to be created for redressal of grievances.

Javadekar said that like TV and print, a regulatory body will be created for digital, which can be headed by a retired judge or eminent person.

He said, "Just as an apology is made on TV for making a mistake, the same has to be done for digital."

Apart from this, the content will have to be classified according to age and will have to provide parental lock.

He said that where immediate action is required, a monitoring mechanism will be created at the government level for such cases.

Of the total deaths due to corona virus in India, 70 percent of deaths occurred in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

At the same time, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have 62 percent active cases of corona virus.

The Health Ministry gave information in this regard in the press conference on Corona virus.

Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Ministry of Health said that in view of the increasing cases and deaths of Corona in the capital, Delhi Government is being talked to. He informed that some special instructions have been given to the state government. If they are followed then the cases may come under control.

Regarding the increasing cases of Corona virus in India, he said, "Every day positive cases are increasing. This should be seen in the context of the entire population. The government has adopted a hierarchical approach to open up the economy by ensuring adequate testing capacity, giving clear guidelines to clinical treatment protocols and enhancing hospital infrastructure. ''

He said that compared to other countries, there are very few cases of kovid per million (population) in India. There are also very few deaths per million in India. There have been 49 deaths per 1 lakh. At the same time, there are 2,792 cases per million population of corona virus.

The Health Ministry also informed that a second sero survey has started in 70 districts across India. The results will come in the next two weeks.

Also told that 11 lakh tests of corona virus have been done in the last 24 hours. So far, more than 4.5 crore tests have been conducted in the whole country.

There has also been a decrease in the corona case in some states. According to the Health Ministry, there has been a weekly decrease of 13.7 percent in active cases in Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, there has been a weekly decrease of 16.1 percent in Karnataka, 6.8 percent in Maharashtra and 23.9 percent in Tamil Nadu and 17.1 percent in Uttar Pradesh.

Maharashtra has seen a 7 percent decrease in corona virus cases in the last three weeks.

A 30-member parliamentary committee on electronics and information technology in India heard the allegations leveled on social media site Facebook on Wednesday.

Officers associated with the department were present before this committee. Also, Facebook managing director in India Ajit Mohan also spoke.

According to the news agency PTI, the argument was made from Facebook that it has always kept transparency about its social media platform.

Facebook also said that it has also given people a means to express their expression without any political pressure.

The controversy began when an American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, accused India of Facebook of doing more in favor of the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

It was also alleged in the newspaper that there is no control over the posts that promote hate against minorities on Facebook. It was also alleged that those alleged inflammatory posts were removed by Facebook when the newspaper gave information about them.

Facebook responded to these allegations via email, saying, "Any violence or hate content is banned on Facebook." It does not matter which way the political writer of the post writer is.

The parliamentary committee headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor also included journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and a representative of a social media tracking group to help in the proceedings.

Sources in Parliament say that the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee was held in a closed room, but a video recording of the entire proceedings has been done.

The committee's hearing lasted for a long time. During this time, members of the ruling and opposition have kept silence about what happened in the closed room.

The committee consists of members from both houses of parliament, with a large number of members of the ruling party.

But even before the committee's meeting, the Congress wrote two letters to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, citing the conduct and posts made by two representatives working for Facebook in India.

After the letter, committee chairman Shashi Tharoor sent a notice to Facebook, while Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore demanded the removal of Tharoor as the chairman of the committee.

Dubey's written allegation is that Shashi Tharoor is working to advance his own and his party's agenda through this social media platform.

But the Speaker of the Lok Sabha did not respond to the letter.

Just a day before the committee's meeting, Union Law and Justice, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg alleging that his social media platform was censoring posts by right-wing ideologues.

Ravi Shankar Prasad also alleged that what has been written in the American newspaper is actually presenting a reverse image. He also said that 'it is condemnable to spread interference in the political system of India'.

Facebook has about 300 million users in India and Ravi Shankar Prasad also alleges that in the general elections held in 2019, Facebook did not allow the Bharatiya Janata Party to properly communicate to the people.

Because of this ongoing war between political parties, Facebook remains in constant discussion, but no one knows what happened in the parliamentary committee.

Speaking to the BBC, Vice President of Rajya Sabha Harivansh Narayan Singh said that in total there are 24 parliamentary committees which have been formed on various departments or issues. These include MPs of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha but most of the committees are headed by members of Lok Sabha.

There is already a clear outline for how the Parliament will run. The rules of legislative business are also clear which cannot be debated as they are part of the already prescribed parliamentary tradition.

Says Harivansh Narayan, "The parliamentary committee meeting is completely confidential about which committee members are not allowed to speak outside." Not only the members but those whom the committee calls by sending notices also cannot say anything outside. If they do, then it becomes a matter of breach of privilege. ''

MP Manoj Kumar Jha says that unless the report of the committee is put on the table of the Parliament, it cannot be made public. They say that members of the parliamentary committee and the people appearing before them are also bound by the oath.

Therefore, the proceedings of the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Electronics and Information Technology, which lasted for about three hours, are not available for the information of the common people until Parliament approves it. This is the legislative practice.

The Indian government has banned 118 mobile apps developed in China, including the gaming app PUBG.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that these apps have been banned because they were involved in activities against India's sovereignty and integrity, defense of the country and public order.

The statement issued by the ministry said, "This step will protect the interests of crores of mobile and internet users in India." This decision has been taken with the intention of ensuring the security and sovereignty of India's cyberspace. ''

According to the statement, the Government of India was receiving complaints about these apps from various sources, including reports that users' data from some mobile apps available on Android and IOS were unauthorizedly stolen and sent to servers located outside India. Were staying.

The decision to ban 118 apps in China has been taken at a time when there are reports of tensions between the two countries on the Line of Actual Control or LAC in Ladakh once again.

The Indian government had earlier banned 59 apps related to China in June. They also included Tiktok.

The last decision to ban 59 Chinese apps was taken a few days after a violent clash between Indo-Chinese troops in the Galvan Valley on July 15.

Amnesty International, an international non-governmental organization working on human rights, has released its independent inquiry report on the riots in north-east Delhi in February this year.

The report accuses the Delhi Police of not stopping the riots, joining them, refusing to ask for help over the phone, preventing the victims from reaching the hospital, especially assaulting the Muslim community.

Citing intimidation, intimidation of riot victims and peace-loving agitators in the six months following the riots, jailing and registering cases against them, the report also underscores that not a single case of allegations of human rights violations on Delhi Police I have not registered an FIR yet. The Delhi Police works under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

According to Amnesty International executive director Avinash Kumar, "This protection from the power side gives the message that law enforcement officials can violate human rights without accountability." That is, they can run their own law. ''

Before releasing the report, Amnesty International approached the Delhi Police to find its side but no response was received for a week.

In March, Delhi Police Joint Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar, in an interview with BBC Hindi correspondent Salman Ravi, denied the allegation of police being a silent spectator during the riots and said, "If any allegations against police personnel come forward. They will be investigated if they come ''.

Earlier, the Delhi Minorities Commission also released a fact-finding report on the Delhi riots in July.

In this too, many victims had complained of not registering FIRs of police, threatening to compromise and making them accused in other cases by accusing them of violence.

At the same time, the Delhi Police was accused of falsely presenting a riot between two communities instead of plotting to target the Muslim community. The Delhi Police also did not answer any questions from the Commission.

Role of Delhi Police before riots

The report by Amnesty International is based on a study of 50 riot victims, eyewitnesses, lawyers, doctors, human rights activists, conversations with retired police officers and videos of people made.

It first mentions allegations of assault and sexual harassment from students protesting against the Delhi Police's Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at Jamia Millia Islamia University on 15 December 2019.

The Delhi Police has opposed the PIL in the Delhi High Court to set up a special investigation team to investigate this incident.

Subsequently, on January 5, 2020, Jawaharlal Nehru University is reported to have vandalized Rods and assaulted nearly two dozen students and teachers.

In this case, even after more than 40 complaints were filed by the students and teachers of JNU, the Delhi Police has not registered a single FIR.

However, FIRs were lodged against some anti-CAA protesters who were injured in the assault, including Aishi Ghosh of JNU Students Union. The report also gives information about the provocative speeches of BJP leaders in several election rallies held in the month of January before the Delhi Assembly elections.

On 26 February 2020, the Delhi High Court orders the Delhi Police to file an FIR against BJP MPs and leaders, Kapil Mishra, Parvesh Verma, Anurag Thakur, under a 'Conscious Decision' (Socha Sekhla Judgment). No FIR has been registered against one of them so far.

In July, in an interview to BBC correspondent Divya Arya, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi admitted that inflammatory speeches were wrong, we are against all such statements that are provocative, defame the country and secular character Are going to damage We are against all this. Whatever done, wrong done. I am against him. We have not and should not justify such poisonous statements.

Role of Delhi Police during riots

In the Amnesty International report, many riot victims have claimed in their statements that when they called the emergency number 100 of Delhi Police, no one picked it up or retorted, "Freedom was wanted, now take it Freedom. ''

'What do we want? The slogan 'Azadi' was used in anti-CAA demonstrations and according to the agitators, there was talk of freedom from discrimination and atrocities.

The report includes videos of five young men being shot by police and a conversation with the mother of one of them who claims that her son was jailed for 36 hours from where he died after being released.

According to the mother, he was not given any documents of the custody of the son, nor according to the law, the son was produced before the magistrate within 24 hours of his detention.

The report also details cases of police remaining mute spectators during the riots and in some cases engaging in stone pelting and preventing victims from reaching hospitals.

Most of the 53 people killed in the riots are Muslims and their homes and shops have suffered more damage than the Hindu community.

According to the report, when he spoke to a Hindu caretaker of a school, he did not call for help even after repeated calls to the police, but at the same time adopting a sensitive attitude towards the police, that he could not come to help. There were rioters stopping the way.

The same liberal attitude towards the Delhi Police is also seen in the report 'Daily Writers: Conspiracy Unrevealed', a report of a trust named 'Center for Justice' (CFJ), submitted to Home Minister Amit Shah, describing the riots as anti-Hindu.

Role of police after riots

Unlike earlier reports on riots, Amnesty International's investigation also looks into the police investigation after the riots and accuses them of arresting and taking large numbers of Muslims after the riots.

Citing the arrests of human rights activist Khalid Saifi for demonstrating in February, it has been claimed that he was in a wheelchair in March due to his treatment in police custody.

Saifi has been in jail for six months. He has been arrested under UAPA law.

The report contains statements of several riot-victims, including allegations of torture at the hands of the police and forcibly making false statements, coercion, signing blank paper.

There is also a statement by the lawyer of a non-governmental organization, 'Human Rights Law Network', which accuses him of preventing him from talking to his client, misbehaving with the police and lathicharge.

On July 8, an order of the Delhi Police, which wrote that the arrests related to the Delhi riots "need to be taken care of" so that it does not "hurt Hindu sentiments", but the Delhi High Court lambasted the police. .

The court had not quashed the order, but argued that "the investigating agencies have to take care that there is no discrimination against the instructions given by the senior officers which is wrong under the law".

Amnesty International has demanded with the details of the last six months that the investigation and accountability of the action of the Delhi Police should be fixed and the Police Department should be trained to work in times of communal tension and violence.

The Delhi Police's response to the allegations made in this report is awaited. The report will be updated on getting a statement from the police.

The top two universities in America have chosen the path of legal action against the US government. The government has enacted a new immigration-related rule under which students from other countries have come to terms with leaving the country.

The Donald Trump administration has implemented a new rule under which students who do not have class room classes in their educational institutions will not be allowed to stay in the country. However, due to the corona virus epidemic, most universities are conducting online teaching.

Two of the world's top institutes, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have appealed to the Federal Court to ban the new immigration law.

In an email sent to Harvard Community, Harvard President Lawrence Bacau said that we will fight this case vigorously so that our international students and international students from other educational institutions in the country can complete their studies free of fear of being expelled from the country.

In view of the Corona infection in India, CBSE has announced to reduce syllabus from ninth to 12th class, giving relief to the students.

The press statement issued by CBSE said that the decision has been taken in view of the conditions arising out of the corona infection as class room classes are not being held due to the closure of schools.

Due to this, the board has decided to reduce the syllabus from ninth to 12th by 30% in the 2020-21 season.

The parts which will be reduced from the syllabus will not be asked questions in internal assessment and board examination.

Can boycott damage Facebook? The answer is 'yes'.

The 'Abolitionist Movement', which took place in the 18th century, prevented the British people from buying enslaved goods.

This movement had a big impact. Nearly three lakh people stopped buying sugar, which increased the pressure to abolish slavery.

'Stop Hate for Profit' is the latest campaign in which 'boycott' is being used as a political weapon. The campaign claims that Facebook does not do enough to remove hateful and racist content on its platform.

The 'Stop Hate for Profit' campaign has persuaded many large companies to remove their advertisements from Facebook and some other social media platforms.

After Coca-Cola, Unilever and Starbucks, now well-known companies such as Ford, Adidas and HP have also joined their advertisers.

Microsoft also stopped advertising on Facebook and Instagram in May, according to news website 'Axius'. Microsoft has stopped advertising on Facebook due to unknown 'inappropriate content'.

Meanwhile, other online platforms such as Reddit and Twitch have also taken anti-hate steps on their own and have increased the pressure on Facebook.

So can such a boycott cause huge damage to Facebook?

The short answer to this question is yes. Because a large part of Facebook's revenue comes from advertisements.

David Cumming of Aviva Investors told the BBC that Facebook had lost people's trust and that users found a lack of moral values ​​in Facebook's attitude. Davim Cumming believes that these assumptions can hurt Facebook's business badly.

On Friday, the share price of Facebook was down by eight percent. As a result, the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost at least five and a half trillion rupees.

But can the damage be bigger? Could this threaten the existence of Facebook in the coming days? There are still clear answers to these questions.

The first thing is that Facebook is not the first social media company to face boycott.

In the year 2017, many big brands announced that they will not advertise on YouTube. This happened because an ad for a particular brand was shown after a racist and homophobic (hateful against homosexuality) video.

The boycott of this brand is now almost forgotten. YouTube changed its advertising policies and now YouTube's parent company Google is also doing fine in this regard.

This boycott may not have caused much damage to Facebook. There are other reasons for this.

The first thing is that many companies have talked about boycotting Facebook only for the month of July. Secondly, a large part of Facebook's revenue also comes from advertising by small and medium companies.

According to a CNN report, Facebook earned nearly three trillion rupees from the top 100 brands spent last year and it was just six per cent of the total advertising revenue.

Matt Morrison, head of the advertising agency Digital Whiskey, told the BBC that it is not possible for many small companies to 'not advertise'.

Says Morrison, "For companies that cannot afford to pay huge amounts of money for advertising on television, Facebook is a necessary medium. Business can succeed only when companies reach their potential customers. So they will continue to advertise. ''

Furthermore, Facebook's structure is such that it gives Mark Zuckerberg the power to make any kind of changes. If they want to change a policy, they can change it. For this, only their views need to be changed. If Zuckerberg does not want to take action, he will not.

However, in the last few days, Mark Zuckerberg has indicated changes. Facebook announced on Friday that it would begin tagging hate comments.

On the other hand, other companies are taking action on their own.

On Monday, social news website Reddit announced that it was banning a group called 'The Donald Trump Forum'. Members of this group are accused of making hate and threatening comments. The group was not directly associated with President Trump, but its members shared their supporting mimes.

In addition, Amazon-owned video streaming platform Twitch has also temporarily banned an account run by 'Trump Campaign'. Twitch has said that two of the videos from President Trump's rallies were said to promote hatred.

One of these videos was in the year 2015 (before Trump was elected president). In this video, Trump said that Mexico is sending rapists to the United States.

Twitch said in his statement, "If there is any hateful feeling in any political comment or news, we do not consider it an exception. We stop it."

This year is going to be a challenge for all social media companies and Facebook is also not outside the scope of these challenges. However, companies always take decisions keeping their balance sheet in mind. So if this boycott prolongs and more companies join, then this year will change a lot for Facebook.

To prevent Corona virus-related rumors, messaging app WhatsApp has put restrictions on forwarding messages 'repeatedly'.

According to WhatsApp, the messages that are being 'forwarded repeatedly' will now be able to forward one chat at a time to the user.

These changes have come into effect from today.

WhatsApp, which has been forwarded five times in the past, will put those messages in the list of 'Frequent Forward'.

Such messages will be shown on WhatsApp with two arrows which means that these are not the original messages.

WhatsApp will not treat these messages as private messages. This is not the first time that WhatsApp has taken steps to stop messages being forwarded.

In the year 2018, WhatsApp had limited this feature to only sending messages to five people simultaneously, restricting the forwarding of forward messages.

At that time many misinformation were being shared on WhatsApp in India and people were beaten to death in many places on the basis of these.

Six months later, in January 2019, this limited ban was implemented worldwide.

After 47 days of travel, Chandrayaan-2 lost contact with ISRO just two kilometers from the lunar surface.

Chandrayan-2's lander Vikram fell silent in the last two kilometers. Through this lander, Chandrayaan-2 was supposed to reach the lunar surface.

ISRO chairman K Sivan said that initially everything was normal but contact with the moon broke out 2.1 kilometers before the last.

The ISRO chief said that the data related to this is being analyzed. So far only the US, Russia and China have been able to get the soft landing of their spacecraft on the moon and India fell two steps behind achieving this feat.

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi was at ISRO Center in Bengaluru on Friday night to witness this historic moment.

After losing contact, Modi tied up the scientists and said that any big mission fluctuates. Earlier, Sivan said that the last 15 minutes are the most important and in this 15 minutes the contact was broken.

There was a lot of excitement about its success in India and the eyes were on the mission of ISRO late in the night.

When the matter of losing contact with ISRO came to light, people were disappointed but all of the scientists of ISRO were encouraged. On the other hand, there was a bitter and sarcastic response from the neighboring country of Pakistan.

Pakistan's Science and Technology Minister Fawad Hussain Chaudhary retweeted the video of PM Modi's response to the loss of contact with Chandrayaan-2, saying, "Modi ji is giving a speech on satellite communication." Actually, he is not a leader but a astronaut. The Lok Sabha should ask Modi questions for wasting Rs 900 crore of a poor country. ''

In his second tweet, Fawad Chaudhary wrote, "I am surprised that Indian trolls are abusing me, as if I have thwarted their moon mission." Brother, did we say that 900 crore should be spent on these drains? Now be patient and try to sleep.

A Pakistani Twitter user wrote that you saw PM Modi leaving the control room? Fawad Chaudhary wrote, "Oops, I could not see the moment."

When an Indian named Abhay Kashyap expressed anger at Fawad Chaudhary, he said in response, "So Ja Bhai, instead of Moon, I landed in Mumbai." Those who do not work, do not mess with them.

Pakistani Army spokesman Asif Ghafur has tweeted, "Very good ISRO. Whose mistake is it First- innocent Kashmiris who have been imprisoned? Second- Muslims and minorities? Third- anti-Hindutva voice within India? Fourth- ISI? Hindutva will not take you anywhere. ''

This mission of India is being mocked on social media in Pakistan. Many people are associating it with the Wing Commander Abhinandan.