Freedom of social media used, misused, abused

Hyderabad: Social media was the platform of choice for those who stressed on freedom of speech and demanded repeal of Section 66A of the IT Act, until the Act was struck down by the Supreme Court last year. However, social media users as well as the social media companies themselves fail to show enough accountability to this freedom.

Many social media users often resort to sexist, racist, casteist and communal slander against individuals, including celebrities and politicians, in the name of freedom of expression.

A recent example was when Union minister  Smriti Irani was shifted from the HRD ministry to Textiles, which was followed by a barrage of misogynist comments even from senior politicians on social media.

Even the companies that own the social media platforms do not seem to bother about accountability. Social media has become a playground for criminals ranging from child abusers and impersonators to terrorist organisations, as was exposed by the recent bust of an ISIS module in Hyderabad that was reportedly in touch with their handlers over Facebook.

In the past 25 days, the cyber crime cell of Cyberabad police had to send as many as 35 requests to Facebook seeking information regarding only 10 cases. They, however, received the required information for only one case.

Facebook declined to provide information on the remaining nine citing reasons like non-provision of URL or date and time of the Facebook posts under scanner.
Cyber crime police officials meanwhile say that they had sent these details in all their mails.

Mr Mohammad Riyaz-uddin, cyber crime inspector of Cyberabad East Commissionerate said, “Facebook takes at least a week to provide information on requests we send. Sometimes when the request is for high priority incidents like child sexual abuse, we get information in three-four days.

Google too has become lax. It takes around 20-25 days. Getting information from Twitter and WhatsApp is much more difficult. With such slow pace it becomes difficult to solve cases quickly. We get 10 cases on an average everyday”

In applications like Telegram, which allows huge files to be shared and where messages can be set for “auto delete”, tracking information becomes all the more difficult, one of the reasons being end to end encryption which was recently introduced by WhatsApp too.

Email is the only mode of communication through which law enforcement agencies can ask for information from social media companies, and no direct point of contact is provided in the US where the companies are headquartered. While Facebook has a nodal officer in India who can be contacted over phone, the officer’s role in this regard is very limited.