Social media plays an integral role in our lives today and has a huge bearing on society and individuals. Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and socialize on the web. There is a positive effect on business, politics, socialization as well as some negative effects such as cyber-bullying, privacy, and fake news.

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Recent developments:

• The US government’s decision to press ahead with an antitrust probe against Big Tech firms has drawn the clout of these companies into the spotlight again.
• Investigators will put Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google to scrutiny in an effort to check if they have abused their market dominance to stifle competition and hurt consumers.
• If such behaviour is proven, it would be unsettling, to say the least, given the widening use of social media and the privacy concerns it has thrown up.

Need to control social media due to rising privacy concerns:

• Legitimate vs fake information:
  • Challenge is how you permit what is considered legitimate content and information, and at the same time disallow the plethora of fake information as well as threats and abuse conveyed through these platforms.
  • There are questions raised whether to ban the medium or platform or content.
  • Rumours triggering lynchings and riots, data snooping etc.
• Data theft and identity crisis:
  • Data of millions are taken and used when only 270,000 people knowingly or unknowingly gave consent.
  • Individuals often share their data without being aware of it or understanding the implications of privacy terms and conditions.
  • Individuals do not have much control over the data they shared and personal data is considered as the new oil.
  • Individual users are increasingly viewed as legitimate targets for mining personal and metadata.
  • Such data can provide an intimate psychological profile including ideological preferences that together help campaign managers target communications and forecast voter behaviour.
• Personal information collected:
  • Fundamental business model of social media companies like Facebook poses some serious concerns.
  • Their goal is to collect as much personal information on individuals as possible and then use this information to sell highly targeted advertising to companies.
  • Worldwide there is very little understanding of what exactly they collected, little regulation and little known about the consequences on democracy.
  • This level of data collection represents the concentration of enormous power in the hands of a single corporation. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has highlighted how this power can be used by a small group of people with an agenda to foster polarisation, radicalisation and undermine democratic elections.
• Other privacy issues:
  • The tax authorities, for instance, have an eye out for lifestyles that may be disproportionate to declared sources of income.
  • Earlier this week, the US began asking visa applicants to submit details of their social media accounts.
  • The trolling of women has brought to the fore the disturbing reality of online violence and abuse women face in India.
  • Social media psychological profiles are being generated by tools designed to aid recruitment. Official scans by state agencies are on the rise, too.
• Currently very difficult to control because:
  • The number of users using social media platforms and internet are ever increasing and volume of traffic is huge.
  • The monopolistic tendency of a social media platform is all the more pronounced for the simple reason that its utility depends on connectivity: People have virtually no choice but to use the network that links everybody else they’d like to interact with.

Measures needed:

• Companies claim that they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulation, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open access.
• Recent laws directed at social media have that changing in Germany, social networks could pay up to $60 million in fines if hate speech isn’t removed within 24 hours.
• Social networks need to enhance their own governance, continue to refine the algorithms, use more “friction” like warnings and notifications for suspicious content expand human oversight, adjust advertising, and continue to share knowledge with other networks to reach those goals.
• India needs to have a legal framework for data protection. It will create a vital and necessary framework against which rights and responsibilities can be articulated, and digressions thereof evaluated.
• A proper data protection law with an effective enforcement mechanism would ensure recognition for India as a trustworthy global destination for data-based businesses and privacy-conscious consumers while also protecting the Right to Privacy of the people in India.
• Cyber law provisions need to be revised as the current approach of the Indian law is very narrow.
• International agreements form an important node in a web of solutions needed to address security and the rule of law in cyberspace. Given India’s vision of a Digital India and considering the surge in cybercrime, it would be beneficial for India to join Budapest Convention
• Experts have pointed to the importance of aspects such as following basic cyber hygiene and a periodic review of the security facets of one’s profile on various web platforms, especially on social media, where users tend to share personal information.
• When there are no legitimate security or public interest reasons, users should have the right to have their data destroyed.

Conclusion:

Social media is a tool for empowerment, especially for a country like India where 70% of the population is yet to get online and leverage the opportunities it has to offer. While social media is definitely facing the privacy challenges, it is also enabling communities to access their rights and voice their opinion. Thus, there is a need to regulate it to get the best out of it for socio-economic development of society.