Regulating social media-Time for platforms to own up content posted by third-party users?

US President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that will remove the legal immunity enjoyed by social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter for the content posted on their platforms by third party users.

Adgully spoke to a few digital experts to understand the implications of such an order and whether they carry any implications for these social media players in India.

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Has the time come for social media companies to take responsibility for the content posted on their platforms?

Kartik Srinivasan, a digital expert, agreed that social media companies needed to take responsibilities for the content posted on their platform. He remarked, “For the longest time, social media platforms used the logic of the fact that they do not have any editorial control over who posts what (unlike say a newspaper that keeps a tight watch on who writes on their platform) to wash their hands off problems arising out of users posting something. He added that social media companies already monitored our usage on a massive scale for many other purposes – to show us ads, sell our usage data to advertisers and so on. “So, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be held responsible for incendiary content posted on their platform by bad actors that cause real-world damage. That is, if they haven’t acted upon such content themselves, either by adding context that could contextualise the falsehood or removing outright hate content,” he added.

According to Manish Sinha, Founder & CEO, Studio 4, a digital marketing, branding & strategy consulting company, all news, information and content present on social media sites consist of significant parts of information that lack factual basis and relevant & logical arguments. He added, “This is more so because there is no proper system in place that holds the users accountable. I think a more important question to ask at this point of time is to ask how this can be done.” 

Giving a different take, Nimesh Shah, Head Maven, Windchimes Communications, pointed out the algorithm that social media platforms use which decide which content is more visible to each individual. According to him, that has become the bone of contention. Adding further, he said, “Had they simply played the neutral role of displaying to the user all of their connection’s content without any bias, they wouldn’t be facing so much heat. They should have simply focussed on removing fake profiles, removing abusive content, adding fact-checker on fake posts and ended it there. Today, most governments are accusing them of partiality when it comes to displaying their ideological content. The only option they are left with is to build bigger teams that will remove irresponsible content out faster till the AI tools get better at doing it automatically.”

Following President Trump’s executive order on online regulations, do you think safe harbour available to social media in India can also be narrowed?

Given the widespread damage even a social networking platform (different from a social media platform) like WhatsApp has caused in India, Kartik Srinivasan felt that safe harbour available to social media in India can also be narrowed. However, it may not be the case. Srinivasan pointed out that many of the laws in the US do not have the same context in India. For example, the FTC in the US has detailed disclosure norms for online influencers using social media to promote products and services for a fee. In India, those are mere guidelines that nobody follows and there is no follow-up if they do not.

Manish Sinha countered with a question of his own, asking, “How many Whatsapp forwards do you receive on a daily basis? 10, at least? And do we see any of them with factual information? They are written with a lot of conviction, no doubt, but do they have any concrete information? I think Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are along the same lines, although the numbers may differ.”

He felt that narrowing the safe harbour at the cost of voices of dissent and marginalised communities was not the answer. “When talking about India specifically, we must not forget that many media houses in our country are monopolised already. It really isn’t a secret anymore. What needs to be narrowed down is promotion of false information. If this can be done without compromising the right to freedom of speech of citizens, then it really will be a win-win for all of us,” he added. 

“To be fair to the social media platforms, till 2016, most of the attention and resources of every digital platform was used to deal with external attacks like virus, hackers, etc. Nobody visualised that people would create fake profiles and post malicious, abusive content and destroy the platform from inside,” Nimesh Shah noted. 

He pointed out that this trend became apparent in the last few years, and most SM platforms have started using tech + manual teams to weed out that type of content. According to Shah, “What President Trump has done is remove the law that was protecting these companies from getting sued, which I doubt will be taken down lightly by these companies.”

The Indian government is working closely with most of these platforms, which also are complying with most demands given the size and importance of the Indian market to them. WhatsApp is adding several features to stop ‘bling’ forwarding of content on its platform. Also, India’s legal system operates in a different manner as that of the US, therefore, it is not clear whether similar legislation will bring in the same level of impact in India. 

With Google, Facebook and Twitter transitioning into media companies, shouldn’t they also be brought under the purview of the law of the land in the same way that media companies and publishers are?

Disagreeing with this, Kartik Srinivasan said that Google, Facebook or Twitter did not fall under the strict purview of ‘media companies’, since they called themselves differently for different purposes. For advertisers, they are media companies. For Governments, they are media intermediaries. “The truth is, they cannot be defined by our existing definitions of how we define ‘media’. We need newer ways to dealing with such platforms because if they can make money from the users’ content by analysing them inside out, they should also be responsible for bad actors misusing their platform’s massive reach to cause real-world damage,” he said.

Manish Sinha, too, felt that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like fall into the category of ‘technology companies’ rather than ‘media companies’. According to him, this was ironic, considering most of the matters being reported on the news surfaced on platforms of social media first.

Sinha elaborated, “In our free time, we’re scrolling through Instagram feeds or retweeting posts. Knowingly or unknowingly, every one of us falls prey to the ‘freedom’ of social media to publish what they want because they aren’t held accountable for their content like media companies are. Therein lies the biggest issue of this day and age. Rumours begin to circulate, false news spreads. People’s opinions are moulded and shaped even before the true events come to light. All this just because ‘influencers’ on social media have taken a stand. What’s more harmful than incorrect information? Having only half the information. And such is the case with every social media platform. They’re great carriers of half the information, half the facts and half the truth.”

In light of this, he felt that if social media platforms were held more accountable for their posts and subject matter, such an issue would not exist. Every fact would have to be double checked. Any information that circulates would have to be accurate and any comment or action thus taken would be well informed rather than half informed. But one should also keep in mind that social media is also the place where several citizens can raise their voice and comment about what’s right and what’s wrong. Any policy that obstructs this would be seen as a threat to freedom of speech and expression.

Here, Nimesh Shah pointed out that in India, there are very few instances of media companies being taken to court and penalised for publishing disputable content. “So, to that degree, bringing these tech companies directly under the purview is not going to solve the purpose we want it too. I feel that as long the dialogue route is working and they comply with the changes, then that is a better way forward than the official leg,” he concluded.