Government to issue laws to regulate content on Social media

The central government is set to curb the arbitrariness of social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. The government is engaged in enacting laws to make them accountable to the Indian Constitution. The government can bring a bill related to it in the second phase of the budget session or the monsoon session.

Actually, there is no law to remove controversial content and bring social media under the purview of the constitution. Social media companies are taking advantage of this.

At the same time, sources say that the government wants to introduce the bill only in the second part of the budget session starting from 8 March. If it is delayed for any reason, the bill will be introduced in the monsoon session. Another cause for concern is that social media is being used by a large number of people.
Around three billion people around the world use Facebook. Among them, its number of users in India is around 32 crores. If we add all the mediums of social media, then this number is more than 500 million, in which Indians topped the number of social media users.
In such a situation, it is difficult to see that there is neither legal nor effective way to monitor the reliability of these platforms.

A court case hearing is going on in the Supreme Court in this dispute case. During the hearing, the government has warned against the threat of social media. The government has said in the apex court that it should be justified to ask to write everything in the name of freedom of expression. The government has also asked the apex court to continue discussions on making laws in this regard.

The Supreme Court has also issued a notice to the Centre and Twitter on a plea, seeking to regulate hate content and to make a law as per which action can be initiated against Twitter and their representatives in India for promoting anti-India tweets and penalize them.

Google is also on target
Australia, in particular, is going to make a law soon to decide the payment in the use of media content on Google. Last week, Australia's PM Scott Morrison, after talking to PM Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had emphasized the law against Google.