Unfortunately for him, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) turned it down. Why would TRAI turn down a free service being offered by the social media giant? The answer is subtle but very important. While some free access to internet is better than no access, the Facebook free offer was giving access to only certain websites. Thus the poor who opted for Free Basics would be able to roam only where Facebook allowed them to roam. This curtails a more basic kind of freedom, i.e. freedom to roam the internet. And all other smaller websites would have to pay Facebook to enter this “walled garden”. This is opposite to the principle of net neutrality. A profitmaking organisation like Facebook was offering “free services” because it hoped to make those free customers become sticky and paying customers, in the future. It was like a “foot in the door” policy, giving freebies in the beginning, that any monopoly uses to oust competitors. Once it has hundreds of millions of users inside the “walled garden”, it would charge monopoly pricing to those who wanted to access those customers. It would become a gatekeeper to a privately owned corner of the internet. Thanks to a nationwide people’s campaign for net neutrality, the Facebook plan for Free Basics failed.

That was five years ago. The power of platform economics is much better understood now. Their monopoly power is massive and has caused concern across the world. The US Congress recently summoned the CEOs of four large American tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple) to question them about their monopolistic practices. Apart from monopoly issues, social media companies like Facebook also have to contend with issues that impinge on freedom of speech. India is its biggest market. It owns WhatsApp and Instagram, and the combined user base is easily more than 700 million. FB says it does not censor free speech, but even President Trump has accused it of creating a negative bias. FB has faced severe criticism for allowing advertisement with fake information that influenced American voters. Its revenues from political ads are not easily disclosed. In fact since 2011 it has been asking the US Federal Election Commission to exempt it from disclosing revenue from political advertisements. Its employees do assist political campaigns who buy services from FB. But this sometimes makes the company too close to governments and ruling parties. This, combined with its enormous reach, power and data, make it a formidable force in electoral democracies. Add to this hate speech. The dividing line between hate speech and free speech is thin, but this gets decided by the company itself. What if it ends up helping one political constituency?

Last week The Wall Street Journal ran a full page story alleging that Facebook in India ignored their internal guidelines, and did not remove hate speech posts, because these were posted by politicians from the ruling party. Removing those posts, despite complaints from users, would have soured their business prospects in India, as per the article. Most remarkably, the company abides by much stricter guidelines on what can be posted in most other countries such as Germany, Singapore or most of Europe. So these posts would not have passed muster elsewhere. As a result of the WSJ’s explosive allegation, there has been an internal dissent within the company questioning the top management of such dilution of their own internal standards. India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT has summoned the company to appear before it, to clarify the charges. FB says it employs sophisticated artificial intelligence tools to detect fake news or hate speech. But that may not be good enough. There are provisions in India’s laws (InfoTechnology Act 2000 and Cable TV Act 1995) that are applicable. In the era of omniscience and almost monopoly power of social media companies, and proliferation of fake news coupled with hate speech, some regulation is definitely needed. It will need to carefully balance free speech versus hate speech curbs, and innovation.

The article was originally published on Mirror Now.

Image Credit: Reuters (Used for representation purpose only)

The exponential rise of Facebook itself, which grew from 40 million to 160 million users in the US in those four years, was crucial to the success of the 2012 election. Of course, television was more important, but the use of Facebook data in electoral campaigns was fast catching up. That was eight years ago. Today, social media-based campaigns are on par, if not surging ahead, in terms of efficacy in comparison to television. Today, Facebook also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, making it the single largest repository of user data owned in the private sector.

After the 2016 elections, the role of Facebook came under increasing scrutiny. Was it biasing electoral outcomes? President Trump has accused it of creating prejudice, which the company has denied. Its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has said that his company offers a platform to all people to voice their ideas. It does not censor free speech.

It is a platform for civic engagement between voters and candidates. It remains non-partisan. It claims to remain a politically agnostic tool. But Facebook faced severe criticism that it allowed Russian-funded advertisements, with fake information, to influence voters.

In fact, increasingly, its role in catering to politically well-funded campaigns has been in the spotlight. Does this information get transparently disclosed? Does the company take care of removing fake information or misinformation? Actually, as per Bloomberg reports, since 2011 Facebook has been asking the US Federal Election Commission to exempt it from disclosing revenue from political ads. This would put it in a more exclusive situation as compared to television and broadcast media.

In general, the company will push back any government request about user data, to maintain users’ privacy, unless it is legally warranted. But then, its close work with political party campaigns means its employees get close to what can be called electioneering. Facebook helps elected officials connect to citizens, through live streaming, participative interactions and, in that process, helps governance. But its proximity to governments, combined with its enormous reach, power and data make it a formidable force in electoral democracies.

Added to all this, the phenomenon of hate speech, organised harassment and trolling. There are enough instances when bigotry and hate speech have been spread through social media. There have been cases of lynching and violence which arose out of messages circulating on social media. It is a company like Facebook (which also owns WhatsApp) which decides what is trolling or harassment and what is protected free speech. It has to draw the thin line between hate speech and free speech. But the company is not the judiciary, nor is it subject to broadcast licensing. So, what if it tilts, even unwittingly, to one side? Aer all, the incumbent candidates and governments can be lucrative ad buyers, and could potentially influence Facebook’s internal policing decisions. It does employ sophisticated Artificial Intelligence tools to detect fake news or hate speech, but that still may not be good enough.

India has the world’s largest number of Facebook and WhatsApp, and possibly Instagram, users as well. In China, these are banned. The reach, influence and potential power of social media can only be imagined. Prime Minister Modi has the largest number of followers on a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook. He has leveraged the medium to a great extent, and established direct connections with citizens in a way which is a break from the olden days or radio or television. The implication for electoral politics is obvious.

A few years ago, the Chief Election Commissioner of India said that in earlier days, the EC had to worry about the influence of two “M”s. These were money and muscle power. But increasingly there is a third “M” which is “media”. By which he meant the menace of paid news, fake news, misinformation and disinformation. He was mostly referring to print and electronic media, which are all licensed businesses. The EC’s job is to ensure free and fair election without the undue influence of money, muscle and media power. But to this third M, we have to include social media. The recent revelation in a Wall Street Journal article on the role of Facebook in India’s electoral politics, and in being uneven in its treatment of curbing hate speech or trolling, to help a particular political party, raises many questions. How should we regulate this immense power?

Even in the domain outside electoral politics, the CEOs of the big four, i.e. Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple were recently summoned to Washington to appear before a Congressional hearing. This was to grill them about their growing clout in stifling competition in the marketplace. There is a demand that some anti-trust, i.e. anti-monopoly, measures be introduced to curb their power.

Similarly, in the domain of elections, too, messaging, networking and microblogging social media platforms have to be regulated to curb misuse and also partisanship. This is a huge challenge for the Election Commission. Luckily, there is evidence that voters themselves, are becoming sceptical of fake news and paid news. Ultimately, an enlightened citizenry, or voters who invest time and effort in educating themselves, and don’t remain passive consumers of social media content, are the best protection and guarantee of a free and fair election.

The article was originally published on Deccan Herald.

Image Credit: Reuters

The code allows the social media platforms to implement policies and processes which assure access to information on electoral matters which are appropriate while keeping in mind the principle of freedom of expression.¹

With the increasing flow of fake news, paid news and hate speech to elevate the political propaganda, it becomes paramount to monitor political activities on social media. Following are a few measures taken by ECI and some social media giants:

• ECI made it mandatory for all the candidates contesting in 2019 elections to mention their social media handles in their affidavit. They also made it compulsory for all political social media advertisements to pre-certify from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committees (MCMCs) in place at the district and state levels.

• Facebook partnered with third-parties for fact-check and made their Ad Library public which displays all active and inactive ads around social issues, elections and politics to bring ad transparency. Similar ad library measure has been also opted by Twitter and Google.

• Google went one step ahead and hosted training sessions for Indian journalists on online verification and fact-checking, journalist digital safety and security, YouTube for elections coverage and data visualization for elections.

• Now, Twitter only allows political campaigning ads to run via promoted tweets and in-stream video ads. To run political ads, the political advertiser has to obtain Twitter Certification.²

• In a white paper called Stopping Abuse released by WhatsApp in early 2019, the company revealed that they deleted around 2 million accounts to tackle fake news. ³ These accounts have bulk or automated behaviour which means they send high volumes of messages. WhatsApp also launched CheckPoint Tipline which allows its users to submit suspicious content to know its authenticity. In 2 months of CheckPoint’s launch, it received about 75,000 authentication requests from the users.⁴

• ECI together with social media platforms have developed a notification mechanism. The electoral body notifies about the violation under Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, and on other matters. Post which, an action is taken on such violations within three hours.

• During General Elections 2019, Twitter deleted around 220 tweets by May, Facebook deleted about 702 pages, accounts and groups (as reported on 01 April 2019).⁵ About 60 Facebook political advertisement posts were found during the silent period.⁶ These contents were taken down on the grounds of violation of Code of Ethics, communal hate, junk news and bypassing anti-spam.⁷

With this as the background, we land up with some important questions like how far we have reached with the above-listed regulation strategies. Are the implemented strategies enough to tackle the spread of fake news, hate speech and paid news for a country like India? Are voters even aware about the above-listed regulation strategies? How gravely have social media platforms affected General Elections 2019? Did the impact of social media decrease in this General Elections in comparison to General Elections 2014?

References:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha-2019/social-media-platforms-present-voluntary-code-of-ethics/article26593315.ece
2. https://www.medianama.com/2019/03/223-election-commission-platforms-india-take-down-content/
3. https://www.medianama.com/2019/02/223-whatsapp-deleted-2-million-accounts/
4. https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/whatsapps-tipline-feature-has-received-over-75000-authentication-requests-report-6692761.html
5. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/04/cib-and-spam-from-india-pakistan/
6. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabha/india/facebook-removes-574-posts-twitter-deletes-49-accounts-during-first-three-phases/articleshow/69034967.cms
7. Accountability Report by Internet Freedom Foundation

Extensive reach and greater impact of social media have been considered the primary reason for its popularity among the candidates and political parties for political campaigning. Another important factor is the monetary aspect of social media campaigning. Campaigning through Social media is relatively economical with respect to other conventional methods such as rallies, processions, usage of print and electronic media etc. According to the survey conducted by the Centre for Media Studies, even though social media was extensively used by political parties for campaigning during the Lok Sabha 2019 elections, yet digital ads amounted to less than 1% of their expenditure.

It is noteworthy that this is limited to the expenditure incurred through the official accounts for the campaigning. However, political parties and candidates are campaigning more than what could be tracked and accounted. This kind of political campaigning is executed through ‘viral-posts’ campaigning. In such cases, these posts/tweets are shared by party followers, social media influencers and pages which are not directly related to the party or the candidates. Thus, it becomes difficult to track these activities under election expenditure incurred by political parties and candidates on social media. Campaigning of this nature works to the benefit of the parties and candidates who cannot account for such indirect publicity under their election campaign expenditure. Further, such content is also seen as more influential for the voters than digital ads.

Addressing this additional mode of campaigning through social media, the Election Commission of India issued a guideline to be taken to monitor activities and expenditure incurred by political parties and candidates on social media campaigning. Such measures include:

• Application of model code of conduct to social media campaigning
• Inclusion of online campaigning expenditure in election expenditure statements of political parties and candidates.
• One Social media expert to be a part of district and state level of Media Certification and Monitoring Committees

Keeping in mind the current scenario, it is crucial to contemplate the changing nature of campaigning and election expenditure through social media and to which extent social media will affect the overall cost of election campaigning.

Political parties and other political actors increasingly use data analytics, digital media, and micro-targeting, which make campaigns more “personalized”. Where as in the past, if political candidates wanted to reach voters during election campaigns, they had to hand out leaflets, knock on doors, hold public meetings (rallies) and drive around in cars/open jeeps shouting through loud-hailers.

Aided by affordable 4G internet connection and smartphones, social media has been a godsend for parties who can save on time, resources, and efforts of physical coverage of these areas by reaching out to more voters on a personal level, in an interactive format. Unmediated access between politicians and the people is rewriting the rules of political interactions and processes, creating a new software of democracy. Advancements in online technology, have given political parties and supporters new ways of getting their message across.

The prevalence of social media in politics has made elected officials and candidates more accountable and accessible to voters. The ability to publish content and broadcast it to millions of people instantaneously allows campaigns to carefully manage their candidates’ images based on rich sets of analytics in real time.
Thus, for candidates/political parties, social media platforms are the de-facto medium for influencing their voters and creating a wave of change. All political parties use social media to target voters. Often the message is direct and above board. Sometimes, parties use seedy advertising strategies and humor to get their point across, promote themselves or undermine the opposition.

While social media has been used positively to make voters more politically aware and part of political discussions, its negative use has increased in the last four years in terms of the spread of disinformation and propaganda that create false backstories of opposition leaders, negative stereo-types of religion and caste. In the cycle of propaganda and counter-propaganda, all parties have normalized negativity and abuse online. Social media strategies are the most potent weapons which have become a game changer of late. The party that creates the most innovative social media election strategies will be able to influence their voters and thus get more votes.

What is emerging, is the alarming possibility that outside interests are working to undermine the democratic process in a much more subtle and surreptitious way. Citizens sharing political views on social media is a good thing. The problem comes when we get a significantly resourced outside organisation spending a lot of money for advertising and propaganda to millions of people across social media platforms to influence or distort an election for reasons of their own. Newspaper headlines and social media feeds are full of stories of hacked documents, troll networks, and bot-driven misinformation campaigns.

From the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s WhatsApp campaigns to influence voters to the Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte’s use of Facebook and troll armies to broadcast and amplify his support, social media has been used by political parties both as a tool of empowerment and oppression.

Facebook admitted its platform had been exploited by political parties and other interests during elections. A report from the company’s security team outlined what it calls ‘information operations’ – coordinated efforts by malicious actors to spread misinformation and sow distrust, for political ends.

With this as the background, it is imperative Indian voters dwell on the misinformation campaigns, micro-targeted manipulation, and trolling. These techniques are distinct, though they are often used in tandem. By what mechanisms can digital techniques of campaigns significantly affect electoral outcomes? Are political social media campaigns a threat to democratic elections? What are the impacts of these threats and can impact not just election outcomes, but the key democratic activities of participation, public deliberation, and institutional action.? What are the key vulnerabilities to digital threats and what counter-measures can be taken? How are political parties, electoral commissions, and other democratic institutions affected by these digital techniques? How do they respond? Can cross-institutional comparisons reveal different vulnerabilities and effective counter-measures?