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Officials have begun preliminary discussions on whether India should have its own guidelines on content moderation<\/a> by internet and social media<\/a> companies, top officials told ET.
The deliberations, especially with regard to moderation of hate speech<\/a>, have been sparked by the government<\/a>’s concerns over the arbitrary methods employed by such platforms despite them enjoying the benefit of safe harbour as intermediaries, said the officials.
Currently, social media platforms — including Facebook (FB) and Twitter — employ their own guidelines to moderate content in India, and follow the global standards set out by their parent companies.
“Who has given them the power to decide what is hate speech or not? This can’t be arbitrary. One the one hand, they enjoy safe harbour, and on the other hand, they censor (content),” an official told ET.
India provides immunity, or safe harbour, to intermediaries under Section 79(2) of the I-T Act on the condition that the platforms do not modify the content in any form.
India is concerned about the lack of transparency around the moderation practices followed by social media platforms, the official said. This is stoking debate over whether internet giants such as Facebook, Google<\/a> or Twitter should be allowed the power to self-censor, or moderate, user-generated content on their platforms.
“There is a need for standard rules for everyone,” said another official.
Pointing to Facebook’s community guidelines that are global in nature, the senior official said the social media giant also has Indiaspecific rules on what it terms “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, or spam.
Under these rules, FB had removed posts associated with both the BJP and Congress in April 2019. The official termed these guidelines as “vague”.
“Whether something comes under hate speech has to be defined by a consistent policy<\/a> and has to have neutrality of ideology,” the official said.
Twitter post<\/strong>
Referring to another incident, where Twitter — in its curated news feed section — termed the proposed Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as “controversial” on the day of bhumi pujan by the Prime Minister, the official said the post was removed after the ministry of electronics & IT contacted Twitter.
“Who is Twitter to add the adjective ‘controversial’ to mandir? How can they do editorial modification when they are just an intermediary? They are not supposed to have an editorial line, unlike newspapers, which are governed by laws,” the official said.
Facebook and Twitter declined to comment on these developments.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal alleged that Facebook had shown favouritism to the ruling BJP by not acting on hate speech posts by its leaders. Similarly, last year, a controversy erupted when Anurag Thakur, the then chairperson of the parliamentary panel on IT, summoned Twitter and Facebook over allegations that the platforms were trying to curb free speech of individuals subscribing to non-Left ideology.
As a political slugfest continues over the WSJ article, BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya told ET last week that in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, Facebook had unilaterally struck off over 700 pages without assigning “any reason”.
“This debate around hate speech is skewed because what constitutes hate speech or otherwise will be determined by India’s rules and regulations and constitutional frameworks, not by community standards of a particular social media platform. It also needs to apply uniformly,” Malviya had said.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order diluting the immunity enjoyed by social media companies after Twitter started flagging his tweets with a fact check warning.
However, Indian officials said they are aware that taking away content moderation powers from social media companies will not be easy as these platforms also remove content pertaining to pornography and terrorism, which can create havoc if left unattended.
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印度官员已经开始初步讨论是否应该有自己的准则内容审核通过互联网和社交媒体公司,高级官员告诉等。
讨论,特别是关于适度仇恨言论已经引发的政府的担忧这样的平台使用的任意方法尽管他们享受的利益安全港作为中介,官员说。
目前,社会媒体平台,包括脸谱(Facebook)和推特,在印度使用他们自己的指导方针,温和的内容,并按照母公司的全球标准。
“谁给了他们有权决定什么是仇恨言论吗?这不可能是任意的。一方面,他们享受安全港,另一方面,他们审查(内容),”一位官员告诉等。
印度提供免疫力,或安全的港湾,中介机构在第79节(2)它的行动的条件平台上没有任何形式的修改内容。
印度是关心周围的缺乏透明度适度实践其次是社交媒体平台,这位官员说。这是引发争论Facebook等互联网巨头,谷歌应该允许或Twitter进行自我审查的权力,或温和的,在他们的平台上用户生成内容。
“需要标准规则每个人,”另一位官员说。
指向Facebook社区指导原则在本质上是全球的,高级官员表示,社交媒体巨头也Indiaspecific规则条款“协调不真实的行为”,或垃圾邮件。
在这些规则下,facebook已经删除帖子与人民党和国会在2019年4月。官方称这些指导方针为“模糊”。
“是否受到仇恨言论必须由一个一致的定义政策和有中立的意识形态,”这位官员说。
Twitter帖子
指的另一起事件中,Twitter——在其策划新闻提要部分称为拟议的Ram在阿约提亚寺庙“有争议”的日子bhumi pujan乐动扑克总理的官员表示,帖子被删除后的电子和它联系了Twitter。
“谁是Twitter形容词“有争议的”添加到寺庙吗?他们怎么能编辑修改当他们只是一个中介吗?他们不应该有一篇社论,与报纸不同,这是由法律,”这位官员说。乐动扑克
Facebook和Twitter拒绝评论这些发展。
《华尔街日报》最近的一篇文章称,Facebook有倾向性执政的人民党不作用于仇恨言论的帖子的领导人。同样,去年,当Anurag Thakur争议爆发,当时的议会委员会的主席,Twitter和Facebook召见指控平台试图限制言论自由的个人订阅non-Left意识形态。
作为一个政治激战仍在《华尔街日报》文章中,人民党就细胞首席Malviya上周告诉ET,阿米特在2019年大选前夕,Facebook已经单方面袭击了700多页没有分配任何理由”。
“这场辩论仇恨言论是倾斜的,因为什么是仇恨言论或将取决于印度的规章制度和宪法的框架,而不是社会的标准一个特定的社交媒体平台。它还需要应用统一,Malviya所说的。”
今年早些时候,美国总统唐纳德·特朗普签署了一项行政命令稀释后社交媒体公司享有的豁免权Twitter开始萎靡不振的tweet事实检查警告。
但印度官员表示,他们知道拿走内容节制权力从社交媒体公司也并非易事,因为这些平台删除内容有关色情、恐怖主义,它可以创建如果放任不管的破坏。
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