The security measures that the Sri Lankan Government has initiated int he aftermath of the terrorist attack on 21st April 2019, include a total shut down of the social media in Sri Lanka.
India has also adopted Social media shout down from time to time in Kashmir though India will never be able to replicate the strong will of Sri Lanka in such national security matters. Though we have strong expectations from Mr Modi to take care of national security, we still have Congress which supports Paksitan, Terrorism and the Tukde Tukde Gang as part of its election manifesto.
We also have a Supreme Court which obliges the Congress advocates and is prepared to defer cases against congress interests indefinitely to suit the political convenience of the party. In these circumstances the threat of a total social media shut down in India may not be high.
However, in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan incident and the possibility that the strong measures that they are initiating in curbing terrorism could push the sleeping cells from there to Kerala, which is a fertile ground for terrorism to grow in India, the next Government is likely to push the stalled amendments to the Intermediary Guidelines . T\
This will require more of self regulation by the Social Media companies and if they donot oblige, we may have stringent action against individual social media companies such as Whats App or Face Book.
To prevent Government action, I wish that these social media companies start tweaking their services to ensure that their platforms cannot be misused.
I strongly advocate that all these social media companies introduce an option for flagging the users with “Identity Verification”.. As we gradually create an “Identified Social Media Network”, the “Anonymous Social Media Network” will shrink in size and can be subjected to stronger controls.
Face Book started this trend during the elections to ensure that “Political Advertising” is restricted to only identified/verified accounts. This should be extended even after the elections so that we reduce the size of the “Anonymous Social media network”.
Naavi
