The standing committee for communications and information technology, chaired by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, on Monday discussed a grave matter. The matter of discussion was, ‘Safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space’.
Officers from the Ministry of Information and Technology were present in the meeting.
Sources privy to the meeting told CNN-News18 that members asked how and why the Twitter handle for Prime Minister Narendra Modi was compromised for a short while on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday. The officials from the ministry told the committee that they had no information about the same and neither was their input sought. They said they learnt about the compromise of the prime minister’s handle from news reports.
The members were informed by the IT officials that half a million posts were taken down from various social media handles concerning violative content and that 55,000 posts concerning child sonography material were also taken down. The members asked the officials if there was any mechanism to locate the originality of search violative content but the IT officials did not give a definite answer.
The IT officials, however, told the committee that they were making every effort possible to safeguard the rights of the elderly, children and women in particular as they have been at the receiving end of hateful content.
Last week Representatives from Facebook India had appeared before a committee for information and technology chaired by Tharoor. The committee expressed its concern with the views being expressed by whistle-blowers Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen, who had spoken about the bias and the fact that there was no uniform regulation on the social media platform.
In Monday’s meeting, members of Parliament, especially those from the BJP, requested the chairman to not hold meetings in the afternoon during the Parliament session because they are required to be in the House and coming to the committee meetings becomes difficult as the party often issues them a whip. It was at 4pm, about 15 minutes past the meeting start time, when the meeting actually began.
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