This is the 2nd part of the series on how MSM has treated SM in the context of Assam and in general in present political situation. This post looks at how
MSM reacts to Social Media chatter, and, also attempts to examine the knee-jerk
reaction by the rulers, and dare to suggest some solutions! (Part 1 – Is Social Media the Real Devil?)
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I am not at all attempting to suggest people do not use
these Social Media sites to spread hate, spread rumors, etc. It does happen,
but then, there are enough remedial measures. Effectiveness of these measures is,
again, subjective view. But such hate
speech, rumor mongering is not limited to unknown, or, anonymous, people, or only to Social Media also. Some
media personalities, politicians, too indulge in such activity. But, then, followers,
or trolls, do try to counter them. So, very few of such irresponsible comments
by well known people go unanswered. Many a times they are forced to apologize,
and, delete such comments.
Many of us have seen quite a few media personalities, cyber
pundits, politicians, taking the word ‘followers’ for its traditional meaning.
But, on Twitter, not all followers are “Followers” of your vision, ideas, and
ideologies! There are the curious onlookers, strong critics, mild opponents, and,
media people (for nuggets of information they can use in their works), etc.
And, then there are some whom the MSM loves to call ‘trolls’. Those who question
anything that is wrong, or is in conflict with their ideas / ideologies. Some
do it in decent ways, trying to point out wrongs, use satire, sarcasm, or humor
(again, each reader may perceive it differently, due to many factors). Some,
unfortunately, use indecent methods! They use abusive, and very obscene, words
to target the person, than the thought in a tweet / comment. It simply shows
their intellectual inability to counter an idea effectively. The intent of the rage,
may be genuine, but expressed in unjustifiable and, wrong ways. Can anyone stop
it? Technically YES – there are processes available for reporting, blocking,
etc. But, it’s easy for anyone to take a new avatar, by creating another identity.
This is the boon, and bane, of Social Media.
We have also seen some journalists using the tag #TrollBait
these days to tease, and invite trolls to abuse! Some proclaim themselves to be
Troll slayers! So, they get some kind of (sadistic?) pleasure in defeating an
opponent! As long as it is done in words, using satire, it is fine. Hope no one
really attempts to slay in real physical way!
Those of us who know the working of SM agonize when we see
in the innumerable debates on the TV networks, or in the writings of some of
the experts, unsupported claims on the dangers of ‘unregulated’ Social Media
(SM) & the Internet. To those who don’t know how internet & SM works,
these scares would seem very real. Going by some of the (stupid?!) arguments
put out one should expect a civil war to break out just because somebody
tweeted, and a few more re-tweeted it. Many of these ‘experts’ who use twitter
do spout their views on such fears online too. Here the ‘followers’ do respond.
But, they may not get a reply if the person chooses to ignore. Quite a few of these ‘fear mongering’
expert media personalities holding high positions, also abuse, block anyone who questions them (persistently), even when they use civil language. Many of the MSM do not use the
option of ‘Ignore’ – human nature does not allow a person to take a hit on the
chin, that easily!
Many months ago, Mr. Kapil Sibal tried to order pre-screening
of the content that goes on Twitter, Facebook, etc. He was ill-prepared, and
ill-advised, to speak on this matter. And, that resulted in him being the butt
of jokes, and tweets, with a lot of embarrassment for GoI. A case had been filed,
by a ‘concerned’ citizen, in a Delhi
Court, but the real intent of both measures, as
knowledgeable people deciphered soon, was to curb views critical of Congress leaders.
Reports released by Google and others show how many requests are made by
different Governments to block, or remove, content that’s online. GoI has
bested many (incl. some non-democratic ones) nations here! I agree, whatever
outright filthy, obscene, must not be allowed to stay on. These platforms have
mechanisms to report for action to take them down. GoI, and some pundits,
thought they should be pre-screened, or taken down automatically. The Government’s
lack of understanding of the SM to block some patently wrong content, did not
work (fully) as per its plans. Simply because the party sycophants wanted to use
the Government power to push its plan and paint its leaders in shining colors!
Any vigilant administration should have learnt from this fiasco.
But the UPA Government has repeated the same blunder in the context of Assam
Riots. Some of the Pakistani bloggers had exposed the misuse of images from Thailand, Tibet,
China, Delhi,
etc by vested interests in Pakistan,
India, and Bangladesh to
incite local Muslim masses. Neither the govt intel (cyber monitoring) agencies,
nor anyone in the MSM in India,
took note of the blogs. The government was caught napping. It’s simply because
there are so many blogs, and it had probably not deployed the right tools to
crawl the web. This Faraz Ahmed, who exposed the evil designs, was an unknown
entity to many in outside world, until some days. (Its indeed ironic, his blog
post figures in the block list.)
The #MSM diverted the debate, may be due to instructions by
some party bosses, from real issues that caused the riots, failure of
administration to stop it, and stop the rumor mongers from spreading hate. As
it turned out, in cities like Pune, Hyderabad,
and Bangalore, some
people of the NE areas were subjected to physical violence, intimidation,
threats, direct, indirect, subtle, and not-so-subtle. Lot
of the rumors were spread via SMS messages, handbills, and direct one-to-one
interaction by the trouble makers. It was not by tweets, or thru Facebook. The
hate mongers may have used information from various sources, including Facebook,
and morphed the images, or added text to change explanation of the original
images. One of the persons, arrested in Bangalore,
has reportedly sent 20000 SMS messages, by using multiple phones, changing SIM
cards! (It’s really not a simple task. It cost money, and time. Who paid for
it? I hope investigators unravel full details. This incident shows how
committed was he to ensure trouble spreads.) So far, all the arrested in
various cities, for indulging in violence, rumors, are from the same Muslim
community, whom our rulers tries to paint as victims.
The media which
conveniently professes criminals or rioters have no religion, doesn’t waste a
second to pounce on alleged ‘Saffron terror’. In the recent Pune blasts case, a
reporter from a mainstream news channel (CNNIBN) accused a Hindu group, without
any evidence (later on it has come to light that its work of IM- Indian
Mujahideen - http://bit.ly/OcLGOd). I know accusing any Muslim organization
without evidence is also wrong. If it’s a jihadi group, no right thinking
Muslim should feel offended. It’s a mystery why the MSM thinks when a Jihadi
organization is to be named it paints ALL Muslims as bad! But, when facts
emerge, some sections of MSM do try to hide the facts.
The problem, in my view, also lies
with educated, liberal, Muslims, who do not stop these MSM, and the vested
interests among their leadership, from tagging all with such extremist views. One
wonders why the MSM does NOT give space to truly sane Muslim voices. Why do the
(pro-)extremist view peddlers get space? And, worse still, they are branded
secular! So, what we end up seeing is tit-for-tat counters than objective
debating. We see the same Teestas, Javed Anands, Owaisi (saabs), etc., in panel
discussions. Will MSM take note to bring more sane voices to the studio,
please? Or, it hurts “the anything for TRP” model?
Such biased reporting shows that a many in the TV & print
news media have lost the sense of ethical reporting. What we see is deliberate
ways to promote some interests, and divert attention from ‘inconvenient’
truths. They mix their ideological, political bent to color the news. This is
where the real danger and tragedy lies. They have been able to do this without
major opposition from their studios, editorial offices. When persistently
questioned, on social mediums like Twitter, some of them have sheepishly,
reluctantly, admitted to what sells, why they do so. This is where the small percentage
of users on Social Media have made it difficult for key people in media, and
parties, who compromised their duty to propagate a partisan view &
interests. Such activism has perturbed the MSM & rulers (mainly the ruling Congress
party), to execute this ham-handed action to muzzle the Social Media.
So, in this context, the orders for banning some of the
content on the web, and Facebook / Twitter accounts raises many concerns.
If one observes the 16+ twitter accounts the Government
wants blocked, apart from some fake, some parody accounts of PMO, we see that
they are NOT rumor mongers. The government is yet to explain why accounts of
Mr. Kanchan Gupta, and Mr. Shiv Aroor are ordered to be blocked. So far, I have
not seen Headlines Today taking a strong position on the totally uncalled for action
of GoI on Shiv Aroor. I hope they will make a statement, or a report to question the GoI action.
There are some fundamental questions on how the GoI arrived
at its decision on blocking the Twitter accounts and some URLs. I believe, GoI,
and the MSM, have a lot to answer for.
- On
what basis did the GoI identify these 16+ accounts? Knowing many of these
accounts by regular interaction, I can say the Government has shot in the
wrong direction, to actually muzzle anti-Congress views in many cases.
- Why
the GoI did not find it prudent to give any notice to the individuals to
seek clarifications?
- Will
the GoI explain what objectionable content or activity did they observe in
each case?
- How
did the tweets of these people impact the situation in Assam, or cause
NE people to flee from southern & central Indian states?
- Is it
not a fact that there are many jihadi activists, or Muslim organizations, and some Urdu media, with access to Twitter / Facebook? How many of them have been banned or blocked?
- On
what basis did the Government order blocking of whistle blower sites, news
articles which reported the news?
- Its a fact, per cursory examination of some of the blocked content,
the hate mongers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, or even local folks, have used
visual clips, reports of MSM, and just added their twist in some opening
and closing parts of it without morphing, altering the commentary? I did
notice an NDTV clip used in one such URL (by a Muslim organization from
across the border). A Tehelka post on Facebook was also among the many
such instances. Now, how many of these were the creations of any ‘Internet
Hindu’, or Hindu organizations? Has the GoI got any evidence to prove it?
- Times
of India
said 20% of the blocked sites belong to Hindus. A cheeky way of hiding
that 80% were creation of Muslim organizations?! Why didn’t Times of India
write the other way? Will they explain, apologize for this hate mongering
against Hindus? Do they think their readers are idiots to not ask who are
the 80% whom ToI does not mention? Or, is it a smart way to subvert GoI
censoring them?
- On
what basis did the Government block search of the word “Assam” itself in some of these
sites? While a search eases one’s work, it does not stop one from finding
what they want to. It takes time, but not impossible.
- The
parody, or, in some cases, fake, accounts is another tale. The Government
must know it has better work to do than bother about such accounts. The
official PMO account has already been verified by Twitter, as can be seen
by the Blue Tick Mark. If GoI, thru its PR body, sends official
communication to media houses, other states Government. organizations, and
foreign embassies, they know whom to follow for official information from
PMO. In a democracy, where free speech is allowed, one can never block,
stop people from speaking, making fun of, on issues. Why is the GoI
wasting so much time, and, money, on such frivolous exercise of going
after some parody accounts, making itself the butt of jokes?
Now to concluding thoughts, some solutions to use, interact,
and tackle the beast that is Social Media!
- GoI, governance
is a real world activity. So, please focus on effective, efficient, real
world administration. You can’t govern Social Media! It’s going to be
self-governed! It will be better for GoI, State Administrations, and MSM to
stop wasting time & money on what some people say on Social Media. Any (further) attempts to muzzle SM voices only exposes the intent that the rulers have
things to hide, and people on SM are not allowing them a free ride! If
there is truly zero loss in many scams, and many people are being let of
by courts, why bother with Social Media chatter? If not, then you are
telling us why you are going after the people who question you! BTW, the
16+ is a small sample of the many thousands, if not lakhs, who do not subscribe
to the same views of MSM and GoI. Do you think you can stop all of them?
- Government
can ask some of its key dept.s to identify responsible people who can
share Government view, or policy, via social media. Mind you it’s a cost
and huge effort. The best way is to keep your information available,
accessible, deploy tools that publish the link to such information. A
small team per state Government, and central Government can be set up by GoI as SM interaction
executives, who take inputs, respond in a efficient, sensitive, and
sensible, non-red-tape manner, and then take up with the Government dept
concerned to make use of the input / queries.
- There
is no need to press panic button on what is being shared by people on
Social Media. In fact, if at all one is intelligent enough, its better to
watch the chatter that goes on in this media, without making noise. USA and
some other countries to monitor the chatter to sift intelligence. The
cyber expert who promoted a China
or Iran
like approach to SM, on some TV shows is so out of touch with reality. But,
then he is a lawyer, not an intel specialist. Laws that are not enforced
uniformly, or non-enforceable laws, are useless. We will continue to see
such ‘violations’, and more wasted debates.
- Its
evident many in #MSM and pundits, lawyers, politicians do not know the
nuances of Social Media. Yes, its game changer! They do not know how to
play it. So, they are rattled by the few who question them! You get rattled only when you are doing something wrong! So, its time to re-visit your
personal goals, ambitions, and your media organizations role and
objectives. If you are using your position to promote some specific
interests, do not be on Social Media. You will be questioned vigorously,
and, exposed! If you really want to be in politics, kindly jump in! But, do not use your position in Media to further those interests!!
- The
best way for MSM folks is to be totally neutral in your job, and do not
use your twitter handle for any ‘personal’ / controversial views. If you
truly want it to be personal, keep the account private. Do not use it to
promote any official work. Interact with only those whom you know
personally. The moment you keep your account open, mix personal with
official views, you invite responses.
- There
will always be rumors, hate speech on any medium. It did not begin with
Social Media. It’s only that the rumors spread with fast with new
technology. Do you want to go back to only print media, handwritten bills,
or cyclo-styled printing days?
- If the
Main Stream Media stops spreading rumors, mixing facts with fiction,
reporting un-verified news, and add own views, its going to reduce lot of
rumors on Social Media. The death of two police officials injured in the
recent Mumbai Azad Maidan ‘peaceful’ protest was done first by Aajtak,
tweeted by some H/today journalist. Where was the need to tweet unverified
news? Has any channel so far visited their family to give a true picture so
far? They do many flimsy interviews in many small incidents. Here was the
news of two officials (one said he was ACP, another says he is an
Inspector. The other lady constable one says pregnant, somebody else says
no such lady constable by that name was deployed for duty or injured!)
Where are the facts? I still do not know if the news by #Aajtak is to be
taken as rumor. It happened a day before Eid. So, a nervous Government may
have wanted to quell any potential for ugly repercussions.
- Once a
tweet is sent out, there is very little chance of one stopping it from
spreading. Once somebody retweets, it spreads even if the original is
deleted. A re-tweet takes the form of a new tweet in technological sense.
So, any amount of ranting by the concerned people on Twitter, or on TV
shows, is going to be ineffective. So, dear MSM folks, TWEET RESPONSIBLY.
- Sagarika
Ghose, Rajdeep Sardesai, and some from other media houses, are
known to tweet in irresponsible ways at times. Many of us have the snap
shots of their tweets. Some of the vigilant MSM watchers were among the 16
blocked tweeple. This fact itself gives enough hints that the GoI block order was
influenced not to target rumor mongers, but to try and curb those who question the
biased ways of MSM and the corrupt practices of some in the ruling lot. Any effort to silence the people would mean an invitation to many more to wake up, and take up, the issues!
- Twitter
is NOT your TV studio! Do not treat it as one way tool. If you are
uncomfortable with it, do not use it. If you use it, be responsive, and
responsible. No one, in general, has a personal grudge to go after you. The
4th pillar is expected to be unbiased, vigilant, & fearless.
People who read them need a place to voice their views. As the vested
interests in media houses have tried to muzzle the alternate view, Social
Media has given people the option to question them. If you realize this
and change your approach to work, you would do yourself, and the nation, a
great service. Social Media is here to stay! It can neither be wished away, nor trampled upon!
Truth is like small grass, it does not need much support to
grow. It grows slowly, but, far and wide. But, the corrupt go up the ladder
fast, using various crutches. One fine day, the dried grass shall burn
everything with unimaginable rage, and, consequences. So, the Media has a great
responsibility to not become the crutch of the corrupt. I hope our MSM anchors (and,
the rulers) who were enthralled to live report the Arab Spring, do well to remember
what it did to the regimes there!