There are no laws governing social media statements of the government

By Asheeta Regidi The Independence Day Speech made by the Prime Minister a few days back took an embarrassing turn with an erroneous claim being made on the electrification of villages by the current government. In the speech, a claim was made that the village of Nagla Fatela was one of the villages to be electrified. This was followed by a post on the official twitter handle of the Prime Minister, @PMOIndia of a picture which was supposed to be of villagers in Nagla Fatela watching the Independence Day speech on television sets.  Soon, the villagers of Nagla Fatela pointed out that the pictures were not of their village. Following the confusion, the Prime Minister’s Office deleted the tweet with the picture and issued a clarification. This clarification is creating further embarrassment for the government since it shows that the process of electrification was started before Mr. Modi came into office as Prime Minister. The clarification stated that electrification of the village had been proposed in 2013, and was sanctioned in January 2014. On October 2015, after Mr. Modi’s tenure started, it was reported to the Rural Electrification Corporation that the electrification of the village had been completed and the village was electrified. The villagers, however, claim that though the poles and electricity meters were set up, there is still no power in the village.       The current controversy follows another Twitter controversy in December last year, when the Press Information Bureau posted a photoshopped image of the Prime Minister taking an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas of Chennai. The information posted on such official social media accounts has the capacity to reach millions of people in seconds. The @PMOIndia handle alone has 12.5 Million followers. These Twitter controversies raise questions regarding the accountability of heads of state like the Prime Minister and other official government agencies towards their social media activity. Only general rules govern official government statements Surprisingly, there are no laws which govern the public statements made by heads of the state and other government entities. There is, of course, the general obligation to stay within the law. For example, some rules of conduct are imposed on the Prime Minister, since he is a member of parliament. The law governing elections, the Representation of People’s Act, lays down some actions which can lead to the disqualification of an elected member of parliament. These include making a seditious speech, promoting enmity between people, engaging in corrupt practices, etc. Members of parliament also have a general code of conduct to be followed. For example, the Handbook for the Member of the Rajya Sabha imposes an obligation on its members not to be disrespectful of any religion, not to conduct themselves in a manner that will bring disrepute to the parliament, etc. These general obligations will also extend to any public statements made by the members of parliament. Apart from these, however, there are no specific obligations imposed. Accountability for public statements is customary, not compulsory The result of this lack of rules is that there is no legal obligation on the government to make accurate public statements, or keep a record of the statements, or even to make such records accessible to the public. Any rules imposed on public government statements are those which are customary. By custom, official public statements should contain accurate, up-to-date information, and any errors must be corrected and clarified as soon as possible. Keeping publicly accessible records of such statements, such as the PMOIndia Archive, is also customary, not compulsory.     No laws governing social media statements of the government With so little being said by the law on official government statements, there is even less on the matter of statements made on social media. The only law to be found on the social media usage of politicians are the Instructions issued by the Election Commission, which only governs their conduct before they come into power.     Acts such as the Information Technology Act, the Right to Information Act and the Public Records Act make it clear that a public record can be in a digital form. This does not, however, mean that these Acts require records to be kept of public statements made online. Nor is it clarified if a public statement made online is an official government statement. As a result, the government can freely make, modify and delete its social media activity without any responsibility to keep a record of the same. Government websites including PMO website disclaim responsibility for online statements Legally, the government entities cannot be held to any of their digital statements. A look at the Terms and Conditions at the website of the Prime Minister’s Office give further weight to this: This website of the Prime Minister’s Office is being maintained for information purposes only. Even though every effort is taken to provide accurate and up to date information, officers making use of the circulars posted on the website are advised to get in touch with the Prime Minister’s Office whenever there is any doubt regarding the correctness of the information contained therein. Similar disclaimers can also to be found on other government websites, including the Press Information Bureau, the entity that published the photoshopped Chennai flood pictures. These disclaimers make it clear that the information provided on them are not guaranteed in any way. This can be assumed to extend to all online governmental activity, including tweets and Facebook posts. Need for laws governing social media use of official government entities It is shocking that the two fake pictures in the Twitter controversies here involve, in one way or the other, the highest official of the Indian government, the Prime Minister. Such incidents greatly impact the dignity and respectability of the nation and the Prime Minister himself, not to mention the propagation of misinformation to millions of people There is huge scope to mislead people through the misuse of social media, particularly when there is no obligation to provide accurate information or keep records of the statements made online. This should not be left unregulated. Government entities need to have stricter guidelines for their social media activity. The author is a lawyer with a specialisation in cyber laws and has co-authored books on the subject.