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The role of social media must be clearly evaluated from the lens of its impact on societal harmony and trust, that has been built and cemented over thousands of years, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said adding the latest Economic Survey has "rightly pointed out" issues around the online platforms. Noting that social media is now among the most important modes of information and outreach, the minister said while it offers benefits such as learning, its broader impact must be clearly assessed to ensure they add value to society, their content is trustworthy and the platforms do their due diligence. "We must make sure that our society remains a harmonious society and we should see the role of social media from that point of view. Is social media able to add to that trust or is it disrupting society? Is it adding value or is it creating friction in the society? That thing has to be very clearly evaluated," Vaishnaw said in a recent interview to PTI. He said social media has emerged a
The Economic Survey has made several suggestions on age-based access to online platforms, and the government will examine all the opinions and take a call on the issue, IT Secretary S Krishnan said on Thursday. Last week, the Economic Survey had said age-based access to online platforms should be considered while also cutting down online teaching to avoid digital addiction. The Survey, tabled in Parliament, had said online platforms should be made responsible for enforcing age verification, and simpler devices should be promoted for children to access educational content with safeguards to address the rising problem of digital addiction. It is pertinent to mention that the Ghaziabad triple suicide, where three minor sisters allegedly jumped to their deaths from a ninth-floor flat, has triggered an alarm over online gaming addiction and the Korean culture craze. "You have seen what the Economic Survey has to say. A number of views are being expressed. We will examine all the views a
Censorship claims, technical problems and a report of a surge in app deletions are just some of the challenges TikTok is facing as it adjusts to a new ownership structure in the United States that was finalized last week. The company said Monday it was experiencing a "major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage" at one of its US data centre partner sites. The outage led to bugs such as creators temporarily seeing zero views on their videos even if people had looked at them, as well as slow load times and timeout requests when posting videos. On Tuesday, TikTok said it had made significant progress restoring services though users could still see glitches while using the popular video sharing app. At the same time, users were raising concerns that the company is "censoring" videos, including ones critical of President Donald Trump, ICE or mentions of Jeffrey Epstein. The complaints were enough for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce on X Monday that he is launching a .
TikTok agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit just before the trial kicked off, the plaintiff's attorneys confirmed. The social video platform was one of three companies - along with Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube - facing claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc, settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum. Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed, and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials "KGM," whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials - essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresiden
A Pakistani court on Saturday sentenced two human rights lawyers to 17 years in prison each over social media posts the authorities claimed were hostile to the state and its security institutions. Judge Afzal Majoka announced the verdict a day after Zainab Mazari and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha were arrested in Islamabad, according to court documents. The couple appeared briefly via video link but boycotted the hearing, prompting the court to conclude the trial and deliver the verdict. Family and friends denounced the ruling. The couple denied all the changes. The court verdict said Mazari had posted multiple tweets in recent years that "portrayed the agenda" of the outlawed Baloch separatist group and Pakistani Taliban. The case stems from a complaint filed in August 2025 with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, alleging the couple used social media to malign the state and its security institutions. They were formally indicted last October and had repeatedly refused to
Meta is halting teens' access to artificial intelligence characters, at least temporarily, the company said in a blog post Friday. Meta Platforms Inc, which own Instagram and WhatsApp, said that starting in the "coming weeks," teens will no longer be able to access AI characters "until the updated experience is ready" This applies to anyone who gave Meta a birthday that makes them a minor, as well as "people who claim to be adults but who we suspect are teens based on our age prediction technology." The move comes the week before Meta - along with TikTok and Google's YouTube - is scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles over its apps' harms to children. Teens will still be able to access Meta's AI assistant, just not the characters. Other companies have also banned teens from AI chatbots amid growing concerns about the effects of artificial intelligence conversations on children. Character.AI announced its ban last fall. That company is facing several lawsuits over child safety, .
Microblogging site X owner Elon Musk on Saturday said people using the platform's AI services Grok to make illegal content will face the same consequences as those uploading illegal content. The statement from Musk comes a day after Ministry of Electronics and IT directed X to immediately remove all vulgar, obscene and unlawful content, especially generated by AI app Grok, or face action under the law. "Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," Musk said on X in response to a post on "inappropriate images". The post said, "Some people are saying Grok is creating inappropriate images. But that's like blaming a pen for writing something bad. A pen doesn't decide what gets written. The person holding it does. Grok works the same way. What you get depends a lot on what you put in. Think about it!." Meity has directed X to take action against offending content, users and accounts. The ministry has directed the US-bas