Crack the whip: Govt must devise norms to regulate companies like Twitter, Facebook

Are social media rivals of traditional media? Yes, say the debate that rages on and on in the media pitting the former against the latter. But the truth is that this is only the lens through which a geriatric generation looks at the competition. The problem starts with classifying the social media as something different.

Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and even Google are media companies as much as BCCL, Kasturi & Sons or NDTV are. As they are on the internet, they are treated differently. They are put in a separate bucket, helping them behave irresponsibly. They refuse to be regulated as they hide behind their own version of the freedom of expression.

At a recent debate hosted by HT Media under its leadership summit, Katie Jacob, who heads the global media team of Twitter, wisely ducked all questions of the company’s responsibilities as a media entity. This is strange because Twitter is now more influential in India than in any other part of the world.

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“India is a growing market, which can be ascertained by the fact that the Lok Sabha elections generated about 60 million tweets,” Jacobs said. The fact is there has not been any other single global event that generated as many tweets. Twitter had put in place a huge team in India to look at alliances and partnership with Indian media companies. For Jacobs, India may be just a growing market. But the truth is it is not just a growing market, it is the biggest market for the company.

It is so for Facebook, Linkedin and even Google. A generation of mobile users are dependent on these websites to connect, share and consume media.

The new usage is changing fast and the Indian media, stuck in a time warp, do not even understand it. The new media model is not based on information or on dishing out knowledge. It is based on engagement.

Almost all Indian newspapers look at their internet and paper journalism team as two separate teams. For instance, take a look at The Economic Times newspaper. There is a lack of continuity between the newspaper and internet avatars of the brand. Dito with The Times of India. These are two of the largest newspapers in the country from the same company BCCL.

This may be because they have chosen to keep their internet and newspaper version in separate companies, maybe for valuation purposes. But in the process they are slowly killing both the brands without realising it.

This is true with other media companies such as Hindustan Times, Dainik Bhaskar and Dainik Jagran too.
They do not understand that consumption habits are changing as we speak. Consumers are looking for engagement; not for knowledge or information. Moreover, they give away access to their stories for free on internet.

I have earlier written about how Google will kill Indian language newspapers . I will not dwell more on the business model that traditional media companies are destroying as they are busy milking their quickly dwindling advertisers.

There is much more important and dangerous trend that needs to be addressed. Almost all of these internet companies are looking at curating content while denying that they are media companies. So much so that they are able to destabilise traditional regimes, bring down governments and even cause social unrest.

Julian Assange, the quintessential conspiracy theorist, explained this in detail in a recent cover in the Newsweek. It is ironic that the article appeared in the Newsweek, a magazine that went out of print in 2014.

Assange’s basic theme was that Google and its employees work so closely with US government and its dirty affairs department (CIA) that it can actually bring out down governments. Assange may be stretching the truth when he talks about the involvement and engagement of Google employees.

But his basic hypothesis is not off the mark. These companies work in an unregulated environment and are able to influence masses in a much bigger manner than any single media entity in any country or the world.
They are the favourite go to places for terrorists, extremists and demagogues looking for converts.

Now a terrorist need not call a newspaper, TV station or even a wire service to send his message out. All he needs to do is send a tweet, post a video and the whole world would know.

The Times of India’s front page today talks about how internet was used to plan and manage the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. Content was even created and posted on Facebook and Twitter to show that India was behind the reprehensible attack that killed school children in Peshawar. The Economic Times claims, quoting unnamed sources, the Indian intelligence agencies are looking into it.

The information and broadcasting ministry also should look at the incident. The I&B minister should be asking these companies to register as media companies in India. The ministry should prepare guidelines for regulating and registering internet companies that supply and share content that has an impact on the population.

Public relations companies have set up metrics to recognise bloggers as journalists; event companies allow those with more than a certain number of followers to attend their events for free.

The whole landscape has changed rapidly and is shifting even faster, while the I&B ministry is still struggling. All these internet media companies refuse to follow regulations or even just ethical standards for their content. They have kept their servers in countries that are ostensibly out of jurisdiction for Indian information technology laws. This warrants a change in out IT laws.

There will be a huge outcry against this by the hordes of internet trolls who would object to such a move. Several of them keep harping on the fact that it would be a retrograde step and will kill innovation and harm smaller Indian internet media entities. This argument is off the mark, because any Indian or even foreign media site shows far greater responsibility in its content than these multi-billion dollar internet companies.

The time to act is now, let the coming year be a year of responsibility for internet media companies.

K Yatish Rajawat is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He tweets @yatishrajawat