Facebook, Google and Twitter To Monitor Political Advertisements During Lok Sabha Elections 2019

Date:

They have agreed to flag sponsors of political advertisements and amount spent on them. They will also maintain a 48-hour silence period to completely block all political advertisements.

Caravan News

NEW DELHI – Social media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter have voluntarily agreed to monitor political advertisements and fake news items during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

They will make public the sponsors of political contents and the amount spent on them. They have also agreed to observe 48-hour silence period before the voting, effectively blocking all political advertisements during the period.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, will also be covered under the agreement.

The social media majors will specifically monitor negative campaigning, fake news, personal attacks and inflammatory contents.

They will maintain the special self-censorship program for 12 of the 14 days of election campaign. Two days will be silence period completely blocking political advertisements.

The whole exercise is said to be voluntary.

“EC’s interactions with the three social media companies are complete and they have agreed to monitor all political advertisements during the campaign. Facebook, Twitter, Google and WhatsApp will have posts that involve healthy campaigning while negative/personal campaigns or fake news will be blocked. The action shall be completely voluntary and not enforced by EC,” Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat was quoted as saying by Times of India.

Will TV Channels, Newspapers Follow Social Media?

Now it will be interesting to see if TV channels, newspapers and news websites take any cue from the plan of the social media outlets for a level-playing field. Newspapers have been publishing political ads even on the day of the voting. As elections are held in different phases, voting in a region is massively influenced by live-telecast of political speeches, activities of top politicians including Prime Minister from other regions where elections are to be held later.

theclarionindia
theclarionindiahttps://clarionindia.net
Clarion India - News, Views and Insights about Indian Muslims, Dalits, Minorities, Women and Other Marginalised and Dispossessed Communities.

Share post:

Popular

More like this
Related

‘Shivling’ Beneath CM Yogi’s Residence, Akhilesh Mocks at Sambhal Excavation 

The BJP government is using the excavation as a...

The Bonhomie Between Pakistan and Afghanistan Comes to an End

Pakistan, for decades, nurtured the Taliban for strategic reasons....

What Musk’s Outsized Clout on Capitol Means for US and Trump Administration

The tech billionaire’s social media posts led to the...

Delhi Waqf Imams Demand Immediate Release of Salaries, Warn of Protests

NEW DELHI — The All-India Imam Association on Monday...