Social Media Governance
The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is rolling out something never attempted before—with the help of a global tech giant.
For the state's 80 million residents:
• It wants to collect their blood samples.
• Check their blood pressure
• Screen them for cancer and kidney diseases
All of it at their doorstep.
And guess who wants to have a foot in the door?
The U.S. tech giant Google.
Google has been working with Tamil Nadu for a few years to create a population health registry (PHR) to aid this plan.
But while the state calls this association 'informal', Google has spent US$3 million in funding organisations building the PHR.
Why has Google gone all the way out? What does it hope to achieve?
And from a citizen's point of view, will the aggregated sensitive data be stored safely? Especially given that India does not have a data protection law yet.
How is a Twitter account blocked on government orders? What is the process to restore it? https://scroll.in/article/1048073/the-near-impossible-task-of-restoring-a-blocked-twitter-handle-in-india
Scroll spoke to users whose accounts or tweets have been withheld in the last two years on the basis of a legal demand from the government and who have tried to challenge the blocking orders. This is how they hit a wall.
A few users tried to revive accounts withheld on a legal demand from the government. They hit a wall.
If your Twitter account is withheld, you can approach the ministry with your grievances but not as a matter of right. “It is discretionary for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to reject or respond,” said Mishi Choudhary.
by Zafar Aafaq
01/05/2023
The Minister of State for Information Technology and Electronics has made it clear, the government is the only body with access to factual data to certify any online speech as fake or otherwise. https://thewire.in/tech/it-rules-single-source-of-truth-governance
This idea of certifying truth with the state becoming the only source of truth is dangerous for any free society. It is also unfortunate the state won’t tell us what these truths are and will only censor our speech instead of educating us with facts.
Single source of truth is an informational model which ensures data from multiple databases/departments is inter-linked to create a reference database – ‘a master database’ – which is the only accepted true data in the entire organisation. To illustrate – if your land passbook says you have 10 acres of land, but the revenue database says you only have eight acres of land, another government database for welfare says you have 12 acres of land, then eight acres is considered truth no matter the actual on the ground land possession.
Here, the perceived truth by the government is not a fact measurable and quantifiable on the ground.
17/04/2023
The Editors’ Guild of India has issued a strong statement against what it calls “draconian rules” that will permit a government-appointed committee to label information relating to the Union government as “fake”, “false” or “misleading”. It can ask social media intermediaries like Facebook and Twitter, and internet service providers to take them down. The Guild states: “In effect, the government has given itself absolute power to determine what is fake or not, in respect of its own work, and order take down.” https://thewire.in/rights/it-rules-amendments-censorship-emergency ’ Guild has stated, but is censorship through other means.
As we move into election season, information, especially that available to millions through the Internet, will be crucial. With powers to label anything that exposes the hollowness of government promises as “misleading”, the government has entered the arena of direct control of information. This is precisely how censorship is defined – a system that checks the spread of information that is inconvenient to the rulers.
12/04/2023
Kunal Kamra Moves Bombay High Court Against IT Rules Amendment That Allows Centre To "Fact Check" Social Media Posts About Itself Sharmeen Hakim 11 Apr 2023 https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/bombay-high-court-kunal-kamra-challenge-it-rules-amendment-2023-fake-news-about-govt-social-media-posts-226017
During the hearing, Senior Advocate Navroz Seervai for Kamra submitted that the HC stayed a “much less chilling” Rule in 2021. The HC, in 2021 had stayed Rules 9(1) and 9(3) of the Information Technology (Guidelines For Intermediaries And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules,2021 which mandate digital news media and online publishers to adhere to the "Code of Ethics" prescribed by the Rules.