Govt working on law to regulate social media, says BJP leader

Govt working on law to regulate social media, says BJP leader

The comments came amid a tussle between the government and social media platforms.

Ram_Madhav

New Delhi: The Centre is working to bring new laws to tackle social media platforms, said senior BJP leader Ram Madhav on Sunday, highlighting that social media has become so powerful that it can even topple governments.

“It can lead to anarchy and weakening of democracy and solutions to tackle this are needed to be found within the constitutional framework,” said Madhav, while speaking at the launch of his new book, Because India Comes First.

He said regulating social media is difficult as they are borderless and the existing laws are not adequate. “These forces can promote anarchy, which will weaken democracy, but solutions should be within the constitutional framework,” he was quoted as saying by PTI.

His comments come amid an ongoing tussle between the government and social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. Last week, union information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had sternly asked the platforms to comply with Indian laws.

“When you become a platform, you make your own law and India’s laws will have no place in it? That is not how it works. You bring money and do business, but you have to respect the law of the land,” he said in Parliament, while referring to the government's directive to the micro-blogging site to deactivate over 1,500 accounts in the wake of the farmers’ protests.

The Supreme Court, too, had issued a notice to the Centre and Twitter on a petition that seeks regulation of social media platforms for hate speech and fake news. The plea requested the court to direct the government to frame laws for criminal prosecution of persons involved in such activities.