Government vs Social Media

In February 2021, the government announced new IT rules which were to be followed by WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. WhatsApp has filed a case against the government on May 25 saying that new social media rules are unconstitutional.

First, let’s understand what are the rules that the government is forcing on Social media companies.

The new IT rules given by the government are:-

1. The government will know the first originator of the post or message being forward so they can take legal action against the person for spreading the information.
2. The government wants to make it compulsory to hire nodal officers and grievance officers.
3. The social media company has to act within 36 hours after receiving legal order.

If the companies don’t comply with these new rules, the government will take legal action against them. How the government will misuse its power to compel the social media companies and take one more step towards dictatorship or authoritarianism:-

1. It will eradicate the end-to-end encryption policy of WhatsApp which respects the privacy of its users. The government will misuse the information to take legal action against the user who is spreading messages and posts on the digital platform.
2. The government will be able to remove posts or content that they think is unsuitable for the audience without their consent. No one will be allowed to criticize the government.

The Government is misusing its power to take away our freedom of speech. Democracy gives you the right to ask questions to your government and the government’s duty is to protect our freedom, to protect our rights and not take them away from us.

As someone has rightly said “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.’’

Our government is doing the same, taking control over our freedom one step at a time. But, is Social media giants thinking only about us and our privacy. The answer is NO.

Some days back the WhatsApp has released its controversial privacy policy which will allow WhatsApp to share limited data with its group company. The government has ordered to withdraw the policy. WhatsApp has cleared that it is not mandatory to accept the policy but it will continue to remind its users to accept it.

The Deadline is Social Media and the Government is not thinking about us. They both are fighting and using us for their own profit. Somewhere they say they want to protect our privacy but then they only want to invade our privacy and want to have the user’s data and information for their benefit.