Social media needs to be more inclusive: Experts

The social media, which is used often for connecting to people is transforming the world, but experts from the field feel that it needs to be more inclusive.

They mentioned that more democratisation of communication is important for India. It should branch out from the English-speaking urban population to more local levels where they can discuss their issues over social media and voice-based locally generated content can be an option.

They were speaking at the South Asia Summit on Social Media for Digital Empowerment organised by the American Centre and Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF).

DEF founder-director Osama Manzar pointed out that information leads to economic prosperity and inclusion should take place beyond language and culture.

He said the social media often work as a tool to pressurise the government on several socio-politico-economic issues. "I think social media can be divided into three categories - social commerce, social governance and social activism.

Experts laid emphasis that social media should be able to overcome social and political barrier.

US Embassy Charge D'Affaires Michael Pelletier said it is desired that cyber connections through social media become real connections and people get to know each other in real world.

Anurag Srivastava, joint-secretary, Information and Broadcast Ministry said though social media activities may seemed to be quite anarchial, however, it is a real democracy. He mentioned it is the largest ungoverned space in the earth now.

India has 14 crore internet users, out of which 75 percent are below 35-year old.

Apart from India, other participants in the summit were from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Tibet and Bangladesh.