Shooting the messenger

Blanket ban on internet and apps ill-advised

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has said that it is evaluating the possibility of blocking mobile applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram during emergencies, especially when national security and public order are under threat. The DoT has written to telecommunications service providers (TSPs) and internet service providers (ISPs), seeking their views on how this objective could be achieved. Typically, DoT sends out such directives — that is, to block websites or URLs  — either because it has been instructed to do so by the country’s courts or on the recommendation of the ministry of electronics and information and technology. The blocking is done under the Information Technology Act and the Telegraph Act. The immediate trigger for DoT’s desire to ban such applications is the growing incidents of lynchings across the country invariably based on some fake news that goes viral on social media channels. 

Apart from being tragic, such lynchings are also ugly reminders of the poor state of law and order in the country. However, this is not just a matter of law and order and treating it as such by using blunt instruments of state censorship such as banning websites or applications misses the woods for the tree. Fake news provides a trigger and, as such, it is a justified concern to look at the platforms where such news dominates and spreads. However, holding such technological platforms responsible for the resulting violence would mean that the government continues to turn a blind eye to the social malaise of bigotry in our society. Addressing those social ills starts by correcting the political messaging. Government departments training their policy guns on technologies and companies that provide it in the marketplace are ill-advised on several counts. 

To begin with, such a ban would violate the fundamental right of free speech. It would further dent India’s image as a modern society that values and protects democratic principles. It would, in fact, penalise majority of the users and withhold services for most genuine consumers so that a tiny minority of trouble-makers are restricted. According to industry estimates, internet shutdowns cost the Indian economy over $3 billion between 2012 and 2017. Some of the recent examples are the bans in Jammu & Kashmir and Rajasthan. Worse still is the fact that such a ban is rather difficult to implement in today’s world. Not only are most of these tools hosted outside the country; it is also that the widespread use of technologies such as virtual private networks (VPN) in the market allows users to access content blocked at the TSP or the ISP level. This would further imply that the worst sufferer of such a ban is the common man who may have nothing to do with either spreading fake news or acting violently based on it. 

Lastly, such a move ignores the efforts of the industry to self-regulate and make such social media platforms less prone to being misused. For instance, WhatsApp has come out with some modifications that make it more difficult to spread fake news while retaining the app’s basic appeal as an instant messenger. The better option would be for the government to work with the companies concerned instead of banning the apps.