We live in the era of technology and social media has transforming our life a lot and become a integral part of our day to day functioning. Earlier there were print media like newspaper, radio, television but now the user can make their own content in the social media platform. There is also a concept of “viral” which has the ability to spread the information with thousands of users. Social media has become the major platform for interaction among the people whether it is of personal reason, professional work or related to academic and for entertainment purpose only. It also contains the personal details of ours, so it must be regulated by the government to protect the peoples form the cyber crime.  

What is social media?

It is the web of peoples and communities to interact with each other. They also use to interchange their contents between the like minded users and can be used with the help of PC, laptop, and mobile phones. On these platforms people used to collaborate and create the awareness among the people and raise their voices on different issues.

Individual interaction is also important and it’s not easy to visit the person daily but because of these platforms we can remain in touch with them. This is also helpful in sharing their opinion and collecting feedbacks.

Types of social media:

This classification is done by the Kalpan and the Haenlein in 2010 used by the people and the government across the world.

1. Social networking – it is the most common platform to be used by the maximum number of people. It has the facility of chat i.e. sending and receiving the messages, sharing, photos as well as files. It includes the Facebook having 800 million users, WhatsAap, Instagram etc.

2. Blogs- these are created and maintained by the user and they can also write a descriptive content. The main feature of blogs is that the readers can comment on the above description and the comment trail can be followed. It is generally used to form the public opinion and get the feedback from them.

3. Microblogs – in this type there is a restriction that the content should be within the word limit of 140 words. In this the reader can read and comment on it ex- text messages and the twitter.

4. Vlogs and YouTube- in this the videos are uploaded and share among the peoples. Viewers can also leave the comment on it. They can also see the live videos. As a vedio speaks the thousand words, it can also act as a report of progress.

5. Wikis- this allow the user to create and update the page related to any information and may contains the link of various other sources, ex- Wikipedia, the most popular web page to be visited by the peoples .

Indian laws regarding social media-

• Constitution of  India-  under article 19, it says about the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed to all citizen and state cannot curb them by making laws against them, but these freedoms are under the ambit of some reasonable restriction as mentioned in article16(2). So, any person can read, write, comment on any issue but these does not come under the reasonable restrictions, which the state impose in interest of citizens and the country as well.

• Information technology Act- section 66A of the IT Act is focused completely on the social media contents and regulates it. It prohibits the any offensive video, audio, or text message or any recorded content to be transmitted. This also prohibits the information or any electronic mail which knows to be false but sent with the purpose of causing the annoyance, injury or insulting the others. This is done with the criminal intension and the spreading the hatred among the people. It may also mislead the person.  

but in 2015, the landmark judgment of Shreya Singal v. UOI2, the supreme court struck down the section 66A of the IT Act and uphold the right to free speech in the recent times.

• Indian penal code – any person violative of the above laws should be dealt with the provisions of IPC. like- section- 295A: intentionally insulting religion or religious beliefs. Section- 153A: promoting enmity between groups on ground of religion, race etc. section-499: defamation, section- 505: statement conducing of public mischief. Section-509: insulting the modesty of women. Section-506: criminal intimidation and section-124A: sedition etc. the main laws to protect the person from the social media abuse is section-499 and  section-500. This states that any person to publish any defamatory statement whether oral or write with the intention to harm the character is punishable with these laws.

• Indecent representation of women ( prohibition )Act, 1998: the section 3 and 4 of these Acts protect the women from indulging in the act of pornography and also punish the  people from circulating the obscene material. Sections 292-293 of the IPC also gave punishment in obscenity (including the pornography)1.

Guidelines for using social media by government organization:

The government organization used these platforms to contact the stakeholders and the concern of the people and their voices. This is also done to ensure the public participation and formation of the public policy.

• Objective: this means that what is the reason behind using the social media for that

Organization. This may be for public interaction, promotion of policy, increasing goodwill of the brand or just for creating the awareness.

• Platform: it may be social bookmarking site like Amazon or the self publishing media like the YouTube. It is depend upon the time period for the interaction and what is the suitable way for it. Whether it is open to public or only for particular experts i.e. stakeholders and whether the law permit to use or not.

• Governance: there must be an online identity of that organization by providing a particular login IDs and the passwords. How the information will update and what is the manner of it. And how the reply to each individual will be sent and what is the response format, and who will handle which task.

• Communication strategy: what type of content should be used to post. Avoid posting the unverified facts to spread the rumors and any fake information.

• Creating the pilot: when you are using a new social media then before open to public we should take a demo to understand the efficiency and whether it is effective for the above mentioned purpose of the organization.

• Institutionalized the social media: this is the final step in which rule may be stabilize in policy making, all important occasions and the updates from the websites3.

International laws regarding social media:

Germany – they came up with a law called Germany’s NetzDG in which they set up a procedure to review the contents, and if any illegal material is uploaded then they have to remove it within 24 hours and have to give updates about their happenings. If they do not remove the content they have to pay the fine of 5 million euro at individual level and company of 50 million euro. They also fined face-book in July 2019.

European union- They mainly emphasis on the terror video and if content is not delete within an hour then they have to face the huge fines. EU also introduced the General Data Protection Regulations which set rules on how the companies and social media platforms have to use the people’s data. Member states have to implements these rules until 2021 into their domestic laws.

Australia- it passed the sharing of abhorrent violent material Act in 2019, in which there are criminal penalties i.e. jail sentences up to 3 years. And 10% of company’s global turn over as penalty.

In 2015, the enhancing Online Safety Act was created so that the social media companies remove the harassing and the abusive post, otherwise fine up to 525,000 Australian Dollar for companies and A$ 105,000 for individual.

Russia – it make a law in Nov. 2019 to switch off the connections to World Wide Web as an emergency situation. And according to their data law they should they store data of Russians within their country only. They also blocked the LinkedIn and fined Facebook because they didn’t comply with these rules and didn’t disclose about their further plan to comply with this.

China- they have blocked the sites like the twitter, Google, and whatsaap. They provide services by other apps called as weibo, baidu, and wechat. The Cyberspace Administration of china announced at the end of January 2019 that they have closed 733 websites, 9,382 mobile apps. They have Cyber police which monitors the social media platforms and see the messages which are politically sensitive4.

Committee reports regarding social media:

Adhoc Committee of the Rajya Sabha: this was chaired by the Mr. Jairam Ramesh to study the issue of pornography on social media and its effect on children and society.

The committee recommends to widen the scope of the POCSO act to save child from pornography. And it should include the written materials and audio recordings also. To protect the children from these social media there should be an age restriction, no content related to child exploitation and information regarding multiple languages. There must be awareness campaign and trainings of people to stop the cyber bulling.

There should be National Commission on Protection of child Rights as designated authority along with State Commission on Protection of Child Rights. And NCRB to record and share all cases of child pornography5.

Rajiv Gauba committee (a union home secretary):  they gave the report on the mob-lynching which happen due to various fake post in the social media platforms. In which 20 people die due to the fake rumors.

The committee recommends blocking the malicious posts on these social media handles. And if these sites doesn’t block then FIR could be lodged against them. There are various laws but lack of law enforcement agencies. To make the national portal where such videos and content to be forwarded to National Crime Records Bureau and to state concerned.

The centre asked states and union territories to set up a special task force to closely monitor the content of social media and to prevent the fake news6.

The latest social media controversy: banning of Tik Tok.

It was all started when in April, 2019 the madras High court passed the order on directing the state government to prohibit the downloading of the Tik Tok App, and call it dangerous for children. The Government of India ban it on 29 June 2020 calling it to be prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, security of state and public order. This act of banning has been done under the section 69A of the information technology act read with the provisions of  Information Technology (Procedure and Safegaurds for blocking of access of Information by Public)Rules 2009.

The ministry of electronics and IT has received complaints from various sources that it is stealing data of users in unauthorized manner and sent it to outside of the India. The Indian cyber Crime Coordination Centre, (home ministry) also gave the recommendations for blocking of the malicious Apps.

Conclusion:

According to the social media statistics there are 3.725 billion active social media user and on average they spend 142 minutes a day on this platform. There is also a drastic growth of 328 million users between 2018-20197. By this we can say that social media has become a major part of our life. There are also some social media movements, example-  #Metoo movement which is very famous and all people even the celebrities took part and share their stories, this become so massive movement that many people are convicted by law of land. Another movement is #bringbackRolacola, the candy product made by Parle Company. We can see that social media is both boon and bane, they help people to connect with their dear ones while on other hand the people are becoming  victim of cyber bulling etc. so, to stop the misuse the government should impose the stringent laws regarding this mater, along with making law there should also the effective law enforcement agency.

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1).Debmalya malik, legal implications regarding offensive messages, social media and SMS  

https://blog.ipleaders.in/social-media

offence/#:~:text=Section%2066A%20of%20the%20IT,can%20be%20offensive%20or%20unwarranted.

2.)  section 66A has been struck down by SC order dated 24 march, 2015 in shreya singhal v. UOI AIR 2015, SC 1523.

3.) framework and guidelines for use of social media for  govt. org. by department of electronics &IT http://meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Approved%20Social%20Media%20Framework%20and%20Guidelines%20_2_.pdf

4.) by reality check team, BBC news( 12 Feb.20)  https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47135058

5.) In Rajya S. https://rajyasabha.nic.in/rsnew/Committee_site/Committee_File/ReportFile/71/140/0_2020_2_16.pdf

6.) Vijaita singh, anti lynching measures: social media sites to be held responsible (29 aug 2018) https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/anti-lynching-measures-panel-submits-report-to-rajnath-singh-led-group-of-ministers/article24812462.ece

7.) 126 amazing social media statistics and facts by brandwatch (30  Dec 2019) https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/amazing-social-media-statistics-and-facts/