We need more than a grievance officer to curb fake news

The messaging platform WhatsApp has finally announced a grievance officer to report fake and malicious information, which has kept India worried for some time now. Clueless while dealing with the violence resulting supposedly due to fake messages, the government had been reasoning with the massaging platform to do more to trace the origin of fake messages, which the Facebook-owned platform says it can’t because the messages are encrypted.

WhatsApp’s reluctance in revealing to authorities the first sender’s name is understandable given the fact that privacy has become a major concern for users; though, in response to the government’s repeated petitions, it has over last few weeks made it slightly difficult to forward content, started identifying forwarded messages, and now announced the appointment of a grievance officer for India to report on fake news.

Questions, however, remain unanswered.

One of the reasons why the Indian government insists on the appointment of a grievance officer is because it makes the company accountable to local laws. But, if the officer sits outside the jurisdiction of Indian laws, as is the case with WhatsApp, it defeats the purpose in a way.

It in fact flouts the Information Technology Act, 2000, that mandates intermediary companies like Facebook and Google to have a grievance officer in India, as well as an office in the country. Big companies have partly circumvented the IT Act – Facebook’s grievance officer sits in Ireland, Alphabet’s in California, and now WhatsApp’s in California as well. (The Delhi High Court ruling ordered the companies to have a grievance officer as far back as 2013).

Appointing the grievance officer is certainly a step in right direction, but there are fundamental challenges ahead. For example, it’s not clear how far a grievance officer can help curb the menace of fake information in a country with a user base in excess of 200 million on WhatsApp – and more than 200 million on Facebook and 20 million on Twitter.

The officer’s action -- or flagging by an algorithm -- especially while dealing with contentious content, will attract divisive responses, and might raise the issue of freedom of speech and expression and censorship irrespective of the platform the content is hosted on. Because creating a distinction between fake news (or distinguishing even the degree of fakeness), doctored content, or inconvenient political, social and religious views will not be easy (has never been so) – misuse of techniques like photo, sound and video-editing, and now deepfake videos, otherwise great tools of communication, only complicates the process.

Additionally, these companies’ business and liabilities lay in the ways they are categorised. They are considered intermediaries, a categorisation which gives them the data to earn revenue but absolves them from editorial responsibilities the traditional publishers like newspapers have.

Now the questions is, if they are not responsible for the editorial content, how will they be relied upon to take, what could be categorised as, editorial calls to decide the content’s worthiness. It gives the grievance officer and technology company too much unfettered power; the officer’s role will be tested in such cases. Precedence however warns us to be wary. In the past, to check abuse of their platforms, the social media platforms and other tech companies have mostly relied on reporting by users (who might have their own bias) to minimise their cost. The process does help moderators review the content but also brings in moderators’ biases. The grievance officer can, at least, create a balance between the two.

Though India has been slow to respond, for a lasting and fair solution, we need a collaborative effort that brings together all the stakeholders to make sense of feedback from users and general public. It needs the company to employ independent as well in-house fact-checkers. An awareness campaign in local languages about fake news is a must. That’s on technology front, but most importantly, it must be complemented with measures to enforce the rule of law on the ground -- social media platforms indeed have a role to play in dissemination of fake information, but they are not the sole culprit.

@nafsmanzer

First Published: Oct 01, 2018 16:54 IST