PURGING SOCIAL MEDIA

Though it's not possible for an intermediary to regulate all unlawful content, there should be joint efforts by it, consumers and the government to ensure content-neutrality

- Ashit Kumar Srivastava

EVEN as we have witnessed a pandemic of epic proportions, there is what is called as an infodemic. And human civilisation faces a major threat from it.

An infodemic is the wide spread of accurate or inaccurate information across the globe. But it mostly refers to the spread of misinformation and disinformation. And in the digital age we live in, its impact cannot be belittled. Accessibility to the internet and various digital platforms has made it easier for an individual to broadcast his thoughts and even spread rumours.

The idea of content-neutrality or content-regulation is to purge the content of its directional characteristics and nonfactual basis. As social media platforms gain more traction and become vivid in human expression, they are becoming an alternate to conventional platforms of information, be it news channels or radio shows. People are increasingly using these platforms as a source of information. This is an alarming situation for any democratic country.

While the platforms have continuously maintained that they are neutral with no interference in the content posted, the fact that they are processing and ranking the information qualifies them as curators of information. Thus, polity demands that a much larger role be played by these platforms in handling “fake news” or "hate speech”.

Content-neutrality in relation to social media platforms refers to unbiased content posted there. And it is no surprise that most social media platforms are handling cases of fake news and hate speech at their administrative levels. However, the question that always pops up is whether there are good enough measures for purging the platforms of ill-content.