NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, while regretting that the new media had been used without any sense of responsibility in events like the Muzaffarnagar riots, feels that one way out of this is to put more credible information in public space ‘to counter mis-information’.

The Minister told the National Integration Council in a meeting today that while this was causing concern, the United Progressive Alliance’s policy over the last nine years had been ‘an essay in persuasion rather than regulation as far as the media goes’.

He said that the government is working on how misuse of the new social media can be prevented and said that he would like to hear from all stakeholders at the Council meeting.

He said it was now possible for any individual to reach out to the world with any news within a second, often ‘without responsibility and restraint’.

He added: ‘Every individual has become a broadcaster in his own right without editorial control.’

The social media had empowered the people but this power should be used with responsibility, he said.