Twitter asked to ensure there is no 'foreign element' involvement in spreading fake news during 2019 general elections on its platform

Taking cues from the 2016 US presidential elections , the Indian government has asked Twitter to ensure that there are no ‘foreign elements’ misusing the platform during the upcoming 2019 general elections. [caption id=“attachment_4335359” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] The union minister of electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad flagged his concerns to Twitter’s global head of policy Colin Crowell in New Delhi. Speaking to the Economic Times, he said that Twitter must beware of “foreign elements” as it might contradict the essence of democracy which is fairness. He reportedly suggested them to have an internal regulatory mechanism. Meanwhile, Crowell assured Prasad that the microblogging website has increased its efforts to curb the problem of fake news, misinformation and malicious content. Involvement of ‘foreign elements’ in influencing the vote bank became quite crucial when Russian involvement was discovered during the 2016 US presidential elections. Apart from Twitter, Facebook was also targetted with a plethora of fake news, social media posts with extremist content related to racism. This lead to speculation that a similar meddling could have happened in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Facebook, Google and Twitter were among the social media giants that **were pulled up by the Senate** for questioning on the alleged Russian meddling on their platforms during the 2016 US presidential elections.