'Tweak law, ensure 48-hour pre-poll silence on Net'

NEW DELHI: A panel set up by the Election Commission to review the Representation of the People Act has recommended that internet service providers and social media companies take down content violating the 48-hour ban on campaigning prior to polling, instantly and latest within 3 hours of the EC issuing such a direction.

The EC panel headed by senior deputy election commissioner Umesh Sinha, in its report presented to the Commission on Thursday, has suggested amending Section 126(1) of RP Act to impose the "campaign silence period" on print, electronic media and intermediaries. The definition of intermediaries, as per Section 2(w) of the Information Technology Act, includes telecom service providers, internet service providers, web-hosting service providers, search engines etc.

The proposed amendment, the committee said, will ensure that voters, in the age of aggressive campaigning via new-age media, are protected from undue influence and get 48 hours of reflection to decide their political choices.

The existing provision in the RP Act only bans display of election matter to the public by means of cinematograph, television or other similar apparatus.

The panel has also recommended changes in the model code of conduct to ensure that parties release their manifesto at least 72 hours prior to polling (or 72 hours prior to polling for first phase in a multi-phase election). Apart from asking political parties to observe the silence period on all forms of media, the committee has suggested that star campaigners desist from addressing press conferences or giving interviews on election matters during this period. Also, in a multi-phased election, there should be no direct or indirect reference seeking support for parties/candidates in constituencies observing 'silence' period.

The report of the committee is likely to be taken up for consideration at Tuesday's meeting of the full Commission led by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora.

For intermediaries including social media companies, the EC committee has recommended that they commit to procedures that would ensure that their platforms are not misused to vitiate free and fair polls. This would include a notification mechanism by which EC may notify the platform of potential violations of Section 126 of RP Act. While EC will appoint an officer to liaise with the intermediaries, the latter should open a special grievance redresssal channel for EC and have a dedicated team during election period to take quick action on EC's order to take down or disable content in violation of RP Act.

Intermediaries, as per the EC panel, should report to the Commission on measures taken to prevent abuse of their platforms, including generating publicly-available action taken reports. All political advertisements may be clearly labelled as such and be pre-approved by an EC-appointed content monitoring committee. The intermediaries would also need to maintain a repository of political advertisements with information on their sponsors, expenditure and targeted reach.

The committee has recommended a code of ethics for media during elections to be regulated by a committee headed by senior EC official and having representatives from media organisations, I&B and IT ministries and Press Council of India.