7 Oct 2013 | Digital Freedom, India, News and features, Politics and Society
Illustration: Shutterstock
India’s National Integration Council met in the last week of September 2013 to discuss the threat of communal violence in the country. The council, first set up in the early 1960s, gives senior Indian politicians and public leaders a platform to discuss issues that could divide the country along caste, communal, language and regional fault lines. This September, with the backdrop of violent communal clashes that have seen over 50 killed and 40,000 displaced in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sat with some of the Chief Ministers, to discuss how to resolve these issues.
There were early reports that the meeting was going to discuss the ‘misuse’ of social media, as news reports have indicated that the violent clashes in Uttar Pradesh were spurred on by false videos on YouTube. In India, the regulation of social media has been a subject of great controversy. The government has, in the past, used the IT Act’s Section 66(A) to arrest people for irresponsible posts that they claimed could cause ‘communal tension’. However, as the famous case of the Palghar girls demonstrated, many early arrests under this Section were politically motivated. Similarly, while the government has in the past asked social media companies to take down controversial posts, it has been revealed that most of the requests were again to take down criticism against the government.
However, at the same time, social media and MMS (multimedia messages through texts) have indeed been known to cause real damage. Last year, false rumours spread through MMS resulted in the exodus of northeastern migrants from south India, as the threat of violence seemed imminent. At the time, the government had to ban bulk text messaging, and ultimately restricted messages to 5 a day to curb any more rumours. Meanwhile, with global violence in the aftermath of the YouTube video, The Innocence of Muslims, the government of Jammu and Kashmir decided to suspend the internet for a few days to prevent any incidents.
Only about 164.81 million Indians have access to the internet, and only 143.20 million over mobile phones according to official figures released by the Telecom and Regulatory Authority of India in March 2013. Given this scenario, both the reach in terms of positive and negative impact, is still quite limited in India.
The prime minister, however, chose to focus on social media’s role on fanning communal violence in his address at the National Integration Council. His views on hate speech on social media were echoed by many others, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma. The majority of chief ministers, then, favour social media regulation. Ideas thrown forward included taking action within the current legal framework, setting up ‘social media laboratories’ to monitor posts under intelligence departments and even mobilizing NGOs and prominent citizens to counter social media rumours.
There are a few important points to keep in mind while looking at this debate: the real need for regulating social media, scapegoating by politicians and finally, preserving freedom of expression and an open internet.
Given India’s experience with hate speech online, and reports about gender targeted abuse, along with abuse based on political, caste, community and regional affiliation, there is a valid point raised for some kind of regulation of social media. However, the real question is the kind of regulation India chooses to favor. In China, a new law can charge people with defamation if a false rumor started by them gets reposted over 500 times. In India, current laws allow citizens to go to court over information that has even caused them “annoyance” under Section 66A of the law. To ensure this is not abused, the government has now mandated that a senior police officer looks at individual cases before allowing charges to be filed to avoid nuisance cases. In the aftermath of the Muzzafarnagar riots of Uttar Pradesh, some citizens are urging the National Human Rights Commission to ask the Department of Telecom to screen and remove inflammatory posts on social media. However, when looking at cases where mass impact can cause damage (such as the exodus of northeasterns from south India), the government relied immediately on technology to solve the problem. The same can be said of the Jammu and Kashmir government, which switched off the internet, at the slightest hint of trouble.
However, both responses need to have legal sanctity. We already know the Indian government monitors its citizens’ communications, and much like many other governments across the world, and the legal basis for these programmes are still dubious. The government may want to come up with a plan for targeted control of certain communication channels should a particularly disastrous video or message surface over social media, and clearly contributes to an inflamed environment and damage on the ground. Social media is already being used to recruit terrorists. Perhaps some communication channels will be used to organize riots, as have been seen before in London. These will become bigger concerns when more than a sliver of India is connected to the internet. The debate will undoubtedly be seen through the prism of security instead of the freedom of expression, as we are currently witnessing the world over.
In a predominantly uneducated country, rumours run rife, and the result is not violence alone. For example, in 2006, polio campaigns in India have failed in Muslim communities, because of rampant rumours that the polio campaigns were a method to sterilize the community. In 2008, despite warnings, rumours that an apparition of the Virgin Mary would appear to devotees after staring into the sun caused dozens to go blind. Earlier in June 2013, three men were lynched to death in the state of Assam because of a rumour that a group of “naked men” were raping women. This does not mean every misguided or even damaging video needs to be censored immediately.
The constitution of India allows for freedom of expression, although with restrictions. However, any plan to take reasonable action in light of clear and present danger, should be drawn up with the help of civil society organizations and lawyers, and cannot be made and implemented unilaterally. The potential for abuse is too great.
Unfortunately, as it seems today – social media has become become the target of scapegoating by politicians. For example, the violence in Uttar Pradesh may or may not have been caused/spurred by a YouTube video. There is no empirical evidence for that. What isclear is that the Muzzafarnagar riots started with two Hindu boys stabbing a Muslim youth because he stalked their sister. Not YouTube. However, it would appear that instead of focusing on other causes of communal tensions in a neighbourhood, which include poverty, development, and unemployment, senior politicians vilified social media.
With elections looming, can one guarantee that any gap in planning, law and order management or inflammatory campaign speeches won’t be blamed on a tweet or Facebook update? Will the outward calling for “regulating social media” will substitute for real change on the ground?
Finally, the most important point remains. Hate speech, law and order, and mass panic are realities India’s states have been living with for years. It would appear that, in dealing with free expression on the internet, India’s politicians seem to err on the side of control. Perhaps the next election is not just about the economy, but equally about the Indian citizens freedom of expression and freedom from control.
This article was originally published on 7 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
25 Sep 2013 | India, News and features, Politics and Society
India’s President Pranab Mukherjee (Photo: Wikipedia)
In September 2013, India’s President Pranab Mukherjee spoke about the inviolable right to privacy that citizens of India must enjoy, at the annual event of the Central Information Commission (CIC), a body constituted by India’s Right to Information Act, 2005.
Both the Act and the CIC have empowered ordinary citizens to submit applications requesting information from government bodies, injecting a new phase of transparency in an infamously opaque bureaucracy. In fact, the RTI Act has been born of, and has encouraged, large RTI ‘movements’, that have exposed layers of corruption in numerous schemes across various government departments.
For citizens, the fact that a government official has to release information regarding budgets, forms, decisions and other facets of public governance has led to the belief that unchecked corruption might finally simmer down, and that they are not longer helpless against the system.
However, as the RTI movement has matured over the last decade, serious questions of privacy protection have also started making their way into public discourse. The Act itself excludes a number of security and police agencies from having to divulge any information, and private companies and NGOs do not fall under the Act.
However, political parties that do fall under the act are furiously trying to legislate their way out from under the scanner. In fact, this move, supported by the ruling government that helped bring in the RTI has attracted a lot of criticism and well earned scepticism from the public. In a report on the matter, one of India’s biggest English news channels, NDTV, wrote, “The government decided to amend the law after political parties opposed the Central Information Commission’s order in June that six political parties including the Congress and the BJP will be under the RTI as they were substantially funded by public money. This would mean political parties would have to disclose campaign funding or how members voted during a secret ballot.” Indicative of the mistrust between government and the public, the report was called ‘Divided on everything else, political parties unite against RTI Act.’
Therefore, when the conversation turns to a conflict between the right to information and privacy, in India, it can often become muddled. It can seem that wrongdoers might attempt to hide behind the excuse of ‘privacy’. However, there is no escaping that protecting individual privacy is a genuine concern.
Many countries across the world that have enacted national RTI Acts also have privacy laws that carefully spell out the limits to which information about individuals can be disclosed. In general, information about personal life, sometimes including medical information, is exempt from RTI. Should names be revealed from all official documents, are all court proceedings public? And finally, do some people necessarily lose some privacy because of a ‘public interest’ test?
The World Bank Institute released a paper that describes RTI and privacy as “two sides of the same coin, essential human rights in modern information society.” It also goes on to add that, “privacy laws can be used to obtain information in the absence of RTI laws and RTI can be used to enhance privacy by revealing abuses,” and that both have been designed for accountability.
India does not have a privacy law in place right now, although what should be in the law has attracted considerable debate. Therefore, the contours of privacy in the RTI gambit have resulted from various decisions and court orders given over the years. For example, in 2011, the then chief information commissioner of the CIC informed India’s Reserve Bank of India that it had to reveal information, even if it meant public confidence in the institution might be adversely affected. And, as recently as early September 2012, the Mumbai High Court ruled that “disclosure of personal information in respect of service record, income tax returns and assets of an individual is illegal unless it is necessary in larger public interest.” This judgement protected the individual against any disclosure that had nothing to do with public interest, but instead caused unwarranted invasion of privacy.
There have also been reports that some RTI applications are filed only to be a nuisance, with cases of RTI being used to blackmail public officials, with the threat of burying them under paperwork. In April 2013, one applicant was fined for filing over 100 applications.
Moving ahead, President Mukherjee’s speech indicated that public authorities should be proactive and voluntarily put information in the public domain for the use of citizens, effectively inculcating a culture of transparency from the beginning.
However, until that happens, one can assume that the citizen will most certainly have to rely on the RTI for full disclosure about its government’s activity, and the government will have to be wary of those using RTI applications for ulterior purposes. Most importantly, the individual right to privacy should not be lost in this paper war, between the two sides of the same coin.
This article was originally posted on 25 Sept 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Sep 2013 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
In the aftermath of a murder of a delivery driver and discovery of explosive devices in his van, a small underground group took responsibility, but news editors refused to carry the group’s statement, leading to a print blackout in Manipur.
Newspapers in the state reported on 19 Aug that the cold-blooded killing of Okram Gyanendro had led to a road blockade of the Imphal-Moreh highway in protest. The Imphal-Moreh Road Transporters’ Union and the All Manipur Road Transport Drivers and Motor Workers’ Union strongly condemned the murder and called for a 13 hour general strike across the state as the story gained more attention.
As reported by the Indian Express, in the aftermath of the murder, a small underground group took responsibility for the attack. However, senior editors refused to publish the group’s statement, as they believed this small group could not have carried off the attack and only sought to gain legitimacy through media attention. By August 28th, a letter from the group had been issued to hawkers who distribute newspapers in Manipur, to halt distribution, which was ignored. On September 1st, the All Manipur Newspaper Sales and Distributors Association received a phone call saying that if the hawkers did not stop distributing newspapers, they would be shot dead.
Caught between the ongoing violent rivalry between insurgent groups in Manipur, newspaper distribution was stopped. The All Manipur Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) staged a protest along with the Editors’ Forum and the All Manipur Newspaper Sales and Distribution Association to protest the threats issued to media workers and the freedom of the press in Manipur. Some of the complaints that were made were that insurgent groups force newspapers to carry news, whether it is true or not, and even force them to carry press releases without any changes. The chief minister of Manipur was approached, and asked to put in safety measures for media persons.
However, with the backdrop of the newspaper distribution ban, the editors of major newspapers decided to distribute their papers on their own. On September 7, it was reported that “editors of the leading newspapers published from Imphal created history on Saturday morning by selling their newspaper copies in the streets of Imphal city.”
In the meantime, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has issued a statement of support, stating that, “we call on the state government in Manipur and the security agencies of the Indian government deployed in the state, to respond to the urgent calls from All Manipur Working Journalists Union (AWMJU) that conditions be secured for safeguarding journalists, rights and the public right to know.” And the chairman of India’s Press Council of India also requested the Chief Minister of Manipur to ensure that newspapers can function normally.
By 8th September, hawkers had decided to resume work in Manipur, in light of appeals from various civil society organizations and also for the sake of their livelihood.
10 Sep 2013 | India, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
In an unprecedented move, the heads of India’s three major media regulators, all retired judges, sat on a single platform with the current Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Manish Tewari, to discuss the way forward for media regulation.
The Indian media industry, including both information and general entertainment channels, are often in the news for violations of industry ethics codes. Entertainment channels often air inappropriate content and exceed the number of advertising minutes per hour as prescribed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. News channels, too, have been in the limelight because of the paid news phenomenon, which has been the subject of a Parliament report, and their complicated ownership structures that belie a deep connection between business and politicians.
While around 100 of India’s 800 channels broadcast news, only about half of them formally come under any industry association, although they account for 80% of viewership. The larger industry associations are the News Broadcasting Standards Association (NBSA), the Broadcast Contents Complaints Council (BCCC) and the Press Council of India (PCI).
The panel explored whether an independent statutory body is needed to act as regulator – opened up an interesting discussion. Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, PCI, Justice A.P. Shah, Chairperson, BCCC, Justice R.V. Raveendran, Chairperson, NBSA, shared the stage with Tewari.
The Indian media industry itself has been unequivocal in stating that it is capable of self regulation. However, the heads of the currently regulatory bodies pointed out that despite the current system of self regulation, many channels simply opt out of voluntary membership of these associations if they do not want to follows its rules or pay fines. It is clear that regulators in India are of the view that even if self-regulation is the way forward, it cannot be voluntary. The lack of professionalism in journalism, ‘trials by media’, and the urban slant of national news channels have led to skewed and uneven growth in the Indian media industry.
The panel was divided by questions over the exact form self-regulation should take in the future. While some dominant voices such as Katju’s believed that media persons are best suited to regulate their peers, others felt this structure only hurts the regulators’ credibility. However, Katju also suggested that there be only one body to regulate all media, unlike the current system. Others backed a statutory self-regulating body to replace the current system.
A few essential points emerged as consensus – the regulator should have a real power to punish and fine; adopt global standards; enforce universal membership.
There was also a call to the industry to not hide behind a faulty ratings system as an excuse to broadcast lower quality content. In fact, the Tewari made an appeal for the industry to no longer stand in the way of reforming India’s system of television ratings system, which the government believes will help create an alternative business model. Tewari also added that while the regulatory bodies are currently concentrating on television programming, however, a new or reformed regulatory body needs to keep pace with technological changes, especially the internet. The ministry has publicly said it would prefer a model of self-regulation rather than have the government step in.
In the end, there was a call for editors and owners of media houses not to confuse their duties to the citizens and shareholders.
What is clear is that Indian media, by its own admission, has entered a phase where even much of the industry has come to realize that some amount of universal regulation is needed to weed out much of the malpractice in the industry. However, in reforming business practices, including ownership (such as cross media ownership, as reported by Index) or curbing paid news, it is essential that freedom of expression is not trampled.
A new line of thought has been slowly emerging in India: that the media freedoms allowed by constitutional guarantee extends to the content of the news and entertainment programming, but not to the illegal and monopolistic manner in which the media industry itself operates. It is inevitable that with the proliferation of the internet and complete digitisation of cable services, regulatory bodies will have a bigger job on their hands.
Some commentators feel this means an independent statutory body to regulate the media – like the very effective Election Commission of India – is needed, and it is expected that a private member’s bill will be introduced in Parliament in the next session.
This article was originally published on 10 Sept 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
