An average Indian is amused and hurt at the audacity of WhatsApp, a unit of Facebook, to challenge the Indian government’s privacy law on the last day of expiry of the notice period (25 May 2021). He is amused to see a tech-giant being so naïve that it is challenging the might of a sovereign government and is attempting to create a wedge by depicting the government against privacy protection. The sense of hurt emanates from his assessment that the government is not acting tough.
At the numerous debates, I have heard many experts saying that the government has been on the backfoot. They ask why is the government not acting tough. If we can stop Chinese apps, why can’t we block these social media platforms? Are we scared of the United States or these tech-giants?
First of all, let us try to understand that the US is not China. The decisions against Chinese apps and businesses in India was in the context of China acting as aggressor on the borders and the country’s logical stand that normal business and tension along the borders cannot go together. China has to decide whether it wanted economic activities with India or a war. India’s response has been measured and indicative of the fact that the country cannot be taken for granted.
India and the US have been best of friends and working in complete ideological coherence to promote democracy and individual liberty. A tech-giant, however rich or powerful it may be, cannot be equated with the US administration. Some countries across the world, such as France, have taken action against Facebook and Google on tax compliance issues. Australia has formulated different legislation for these social media platforms using local content. It is not the same as acting against the US.
There are wider issues of taxation of these social media platforms that make huge profit through their operations in India and other countries but they do not pay taxes the same way as other business entities pay since they are headquartered in the US. It is but natural for India to expect that you will give taxes on the profits you make from the business operations in India. This is going to create more friction in the years to come than the present regime on privacy mandated by the government. The matter is before the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a multilateral global forum that must evolve a system fast since most countries because of the slow pace of work have started evolving their own systems which may lack uniformity.
As society progresses to a more advanced stage of existence, the world has to be governed by a just social and economic order irrespective of ideologies. Exploitation and torture of people have to be replaced by liberal values and human rights. None can escape this since people are increasingly realising the futility of ideological divides and that human existence must evolve to make lives more meaningful for everyone. This explains why the Narendra Modi government is focusing entirely on the development and providing basic facilities to people.
The current guidelines of the government for social media platforms should also be seen in this context. Primordial thinking fuels expansionist ideologies. That which cannot be won with brute strength in this globalised world can be achieved by creating divisions and conflicts in other societies using fake news, deceits and lies. The Government that is talking of a strong India must not be allowed to stay on its course since this poses a threat to other powers that seek hegemonistic existence. There are many cases of morphed images of ladies being circulated by vested interests. People sitting in other parts of the world can foment trouble by using social media platforms.
We all know the fact how during the farmers’ agitation a Toolkit surfaced that had outlined a plan to shame Indian democracy. In February 2021, Celebrated people like Rihanna and Greta Thunberg tweeted their support for the agitation without realising what the issues were. While the government is under scrutiny for its actions, private people cannot escape this. The Toolkit was found to have links with Canada-based pro-Khalistani group, Poetic Justice Foundation. People have a right to know whether those who tweeted the Toolkit were paid mercenaries or individuals committed to a cause. The entire perspective depends on that. If one is committed to a cause, one would not hide one’s face like an Ostrich, when caught.
If the government says that it must know the originator of the message so that one can expose the intention of the person starting it or take legal action in cases of a criminal act, the concerns must be appreciated. It would sound ludicrous if WhatsApp comes out with vacuous claims that it is protecting the privacy of individuals. It is claiming to do what the Government of India is supposed to be doing. I would not mind calling it naïve since those sitting at the US headquarters may have thought that they could create a wedge in society on this issue and put the Government on the backfoot.
Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has clarified time and again that the government did not want the social media platform to read private messages of individuals. It was merely concerned with knowing the originator. Technology can provide solution, but technology has a cost that the organisation must invest more so when it is monetising data from WhatsApp Users. It is not without business logic that Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 at the cost of $19 billion.
Whatsapp has over 2 billion users in more than 100 countries and experts calculate that it has made $5-10 billion in revenue for Facebook in 2020. In India, it has close to 400 million users or roughly 20 per cent of the total users. In the United States it is only 75 million. As India progresses more towards the digital mode, the number of people using social media is going to increase manyfold considering that by the end of 2021 the country would have close to 1.4 billion population which is more than four times the population of the US. Organisations making so much money can definitely invest in technology. And what has been demanded in India may be demanded from other countries as well.
Even if traceability means re-engineering to suit the Indian market, the social media platform must do this. It can be done through fingerprinting of every message without reading the encrypted messages. You cannot claim yourself to be an intermediary when your platform is misused to threaten the security and integrity of any country. And in a democratic country like India, the logic of upholding privacy would not hold good since there are robust democratic institutions to arrest the government’s motivated outreach if any. And no government would act against its people. Some courts jealously guard the rights of individuals.
In a blog WhatsApp said it could not support “eroding privacy for everyone, violating human rights, and putting innocent people at risk.” Is this the language of an intermediary organisation? What is right or wrong will be decided by people and the elected representatives and the Courts and not some supranational organizations which have come to do business here.
WhatsApp has also said: “We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users. In the meantime, we will also continue to engage with the Government of India on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us.”
This language shows that it is working overtime to influence civil society groups to further its business aspirations in the name of Human Rights, privacy, etc. This is an affront to any self-respecting country, more so India which is a vibrant democracy. You first decide what are you? A business organization, an activist organization? Or a Front or Ruse for Human Rights? You must understand that in India most people make a distinction between advocacy and running a business. While lobbying is accepted in the Western culture as good, it is frowned upon in India.
If you have come to this country to tell us how to live, sorry we don’t have any respect for you. This is what the British did when they came to India and tried to reach us how to govern. Lord Macaulay had come to understand the strength of India’s robust institutions and to damage that he wanted to create ‘brown sahibs’. Before that, the Muslims came as invaders and tried to teach us that idol worship was the worst form and destroyed idols and temples in the name of Islam. Now, these supranational organisations are trying to teach us how to maintain the privacy of individuals.
Why is then the Government is looking soft on them? This is because the government should not act with vengeance. Power must be exercised with caution and no provocation can be justified. The new guidelines with the best intentions came on 25 February 2021. By 25 May these social media organisations must have complied. Instead of that, WhatsApp chose to go to the court on the last day.
The government cannot stop anyone from going to the court even if the action on the last day appears to be malicious and conspiratorial to many. It must allow these organisations to exhaust their remedies since we operate in an open democracy. The government should not only be fair, but it should also appear to be fair well. This is because the purpose is not to punish but to achieve compliance so that our democracy becomes more robust.
There are only two issues involved: Appointment of Compliance, Nodal and Grievance Officers by these organisations and the other is to trace the originator of the message in case the government or the court seeks to know. If any user of WhatsApp or any such platform has a complaint, say of morphed images of a girl being circulated, there is no grievance mechanism set in India to take fast action. We must also remember that any such action must pass the scrutiny of the Indian legal system. The state can’t allow its citizens to depend on the whims and fancies of individual organizations that you remove some content and not others.
Is the ruse of privacy being used to protect itself from the legal system of various States that would not allow manipulation by such platforms? Or, is this clause of privacy a fig-leaf defence to enable these organisations to use all sorts of techniques to manipulate users. The recent report by Facebook has clarified that it removed many unauthentic networks because these were trying to influence domestic policy of the United States (elections). The moment you say this, you are saying that you are not merely an intermediary and you can put down a post if it does not match your policy or ideology.
I have come across some media professionals In India, who said their accounts were temporarily suspended because their posts did not suit the narrative of the platform. There are no objective criteria to judge a post and those judging these posts may be much less educated or aware of the implications as the ones posting. Who should then decide this and in how much time? Users have a right to know the grievance redressal mechanism works and if any business organisation takes unilateral action they must have an easily available recourse.
This is true that these organisations have data that would help them analyse not just consumer but political behaviour too. What is the guarantee that they would not sell the data to the highest bidder and would not try to influence elections or other political narratives? Should the country than allow a free run to influence domestic political opinion the way these organisations want? Here too there is a need for a level playing field and one cannot escape the writ of the Election Commission of India.
These social media giants should understand that India is a vibrant democracy and phenomenon such as Arab Springs is not possible here. People discuss and debate issues and not just come on the streets. And if a handful of people come on the streets as it happened during the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAA) or the recent stir by farmers, there are a far greater number of people who oppose irrational behaviour. India settles issues through debates. If they had wanted to be reasonable and credible, they should have put forth their viewpoints much earlier.
The writer is convener of the Media Relations Department of the BJP and represents the party as a spokesperson on TV debates. He has authored the book ‘Narendra Modi: The Game Changer’. The views expressed are personal.