moving focus now to the social media versus the state battle, which has played out in several parts of the world and in India as well. Reuters has reported that the IT ministry, in its response in a non public filing before the Karnataka High Court, has said that X is a habitual, non compliant that does not platform that does not obey instruction on taking down post as ordered. The centre. The comment is reported part of a non public filing by the IT Ministry in a case challenging the 50 lac Fine imposed on Remember. This is part of an ongoing tussle between the government and over content removal. Remember in June Kara High Court had ordered a fine of 50 lacks on X for not complying with blocking orders. This is just one of the many cases as I pointed out around the world that's down there freedom of speech on the one side and the ability to restrict or monitor social media platforms on the other, joining us this evening NS as well as my first question to you. This relationship between social media platforms and governments per se across the world is one that needs further definition as we go along, quite a lot of sticking points here in terms of how to go about this delicate balance. You know, honestly speaking, if you look at last one decade the rise of social media and political campaigns and the conduct of these companies across different geographies and their rise as one of the most powerful companies in the world, it reflects, uh, you know, for a decade they have had a marriage of convenience. Social media benefited immensely by political campaigns or political conversations which happened on the platform. They got new users, they got content, they got eyeballs, and they were able to generate a lot of revenue in ads. Now, for politicians, it was a low cost propaganda platform which was available to them. They had direct option to communicate with the masses, bypassing the electronic and mainstream media. They could like, you know, converse with the people whenever they wanted. They could, like, get a gauge of public policy, the reaction of public, the mood of the electorate. So everybody benefited in the last, you know, 2 to 3 years now we are seeing frictions between them. The social media has now become in a way, you know, it has been weaponized by different entities to launch. You know, fake propaganda campaigns has been used by hostile intelligence agency to cause riots. Political parties have been, you know, using it to launch. I mean, bypass election commissions, spend guidelines. And social media, on the other hand, started believing that since politicians were so much dependent on them, governments across the world would not dare to mess with them, and they started to dictate terms. They wanted to interfere in sovereign functions, like, you know, the influencing policy, interpreting laws, you know, arm pushing, governments, refusing to comply with the government over us. And this has been happening not only in India. It happened in Australia. It happened in the UK. It happened in the US. And instead of we speculating, what is their conduct in different geographies? Read the Twitter files. The internal emails of Twitter, which Elon must put out after taking over. I mean the interference of FBI and CIA in stippling, the free speech of, uh, you know, Republicans. And then the so called you know, the defenders of free speech. Look at the conduct in Afghanistan. They banned a sitting US president holding him incapable of operating a Twitter account or a Facebook account. And they allowed people who carried out mass executions at football field who parad suicide bombers, Taliban. They allowed them on social media. So I think these are for profit companies who must be regulated, who must be controlled. I'm sorry. Regulated and who must be, you know, to the bounce of law. But who do you trust in that process? Ms. Nana, How do we go about where do you see this? You know, moving forward with these kind of cases, really determine the relationship and how we go about potential demands for blocking or removal of content and the refusal to do so. Um, my take on this is very simple. Uh, you know, uh, in today's very seriously, Uh uh uh, you know, a dangerous world or online. You need the public private partnership. You need governments and social media platforms to work together for online safety. And I cannot be looked at as a conflict when you look at it in terms of free speech or noncompliance. And I really like that tagline rather than social media versus government, because it feels like that's a conflict, whereas here it's an issue about a factual statement or a position, and when you look at it for the social media versus, uh, social media complying or looking at free speech? Firstly, who decides what is free speech? Right? So there is a process that has been set out under 69 a under which blocking orders are issued, which clearly determines the procedure that should be followed before an order for blocking is issued. And that process mandates that the intermediary who is being asked to block content will also be heard. So if an intermediary believes that they are standing up for free speech and that an order is incorrect, in their opinion, that is where they get their opportunity to voice their dissent. Beyond that, if a company, social media or otherwise start taking law into their hands to decide what is free speech and what is not, and when they will comply with the law and when they will not, that will result in complete anarchy. So I would say that today what is really needed is a better understanding between these two, stakeholders, the intermediaries as well as the governments where they should find that middle part where they understand that one is not working against the other. One is supposed to work with the other to ensure online safety, Right? Both of them working together. I'm sorry, but we are completely out of time. That's the imposition we have on this conversation. I wish we could go on and discuss this further. Thank you for joining us. That's all we have time for on the show. The news continues here on
