Social media has always been contested space when it comes to the free speech debate. With so many instances of hate crimes, violence, cyberbullying and the like, it becomes hard to discern what is 'expression' and what is 'inflammatory'. Karnataka seems to be standing at a similar crossroads.
On Sunday, state home minister Basavaraj Bommai had said that he will be holding a meeting with cybercrime experts. This includes Facebook, Whatsapp and others which might end up providing a platform to hate speech.
Social media raises concern among authorities
While social media posts becoming a reason for violence, is not a new concept, governments are now actively seeing it as a threat to law and order. With the recent Bengaluru riot that took place on August 11th, the centre of the debate was a controversial exchange on Facebook as the source of the violence.
Now, the question on hand is, should social media be regulated? State home minister Basavaraj Bommai told reporters on Sunday that, "In view of inflammatory posts on Facebook and WhatsApp among others, I have decided to hold a meeting with cybercrime experts next week," PTI reported.
The meeting will also be with social media giants like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and others. The purpose is to see what can be done about 'inflammatory' posts on social media. This will be to prevent untoward incidents.
Does this mean more surveillance on activity online? Or would it be a curb on freedom of speech wherein some topics will not be up for debate? These are questions that people might have to ask themselves. Even as the meeting approaches, netizens have begun to ask if something fruitful will arise.
Recently, Facebook has landed in a debacle due to a WSJ report that reveals one of its public policy executives as telling staff to ignore hate speech from the BJP and RSS on the platform. This has sparked a political debate between Congress and BJP. While Facebook has denied the claims and so has BJP, it has still raised the question of moderation on social media.
Perhaps, like all spaces, social media which has now become a 'public space' of sorts will also be one with borderline limits to freedom of expression.
