SANJAY KISHAN KAUL,J. - (1.) Prolegomenon[1]: [1] "Preface"; See A. M. Singhvi et. al., The Law of Emergency Powers Comparative Common Law Perspectives (Springer, 2020). 1. The technological age has produced digital platforms - not like the railway platforms where trains were regulated on arrival and departure. These digital platforms can be imminently uncontrollable at times and carry their own challenges. One form of digital platforms are the intermediaries that claim to be providing a platform for exchange of ideas without any contribution of their own. It is their say that they are not responsible for all that transpires on their platform; though on complaints being made, they do remove offensive content based on their internal guidelines. The power and potentiality of these intermediaries is vast, running across borders. These are multinational corporations with large wealth and influence at their command. By the very reason of the platform they provide, their influence extends over populations across borders. Facebook is one such corporation.
(2.) A testament to the wide-ranging services which Facebook offers is the fact that it has about 2.85 billion monthly active users as of March, 2021.[2] This is over l/3rd of the total population of this planet. In the national context, Facebook is the most popular social media platform in India with about 270 million registered users. Such vast powers must necessarily come with responsibility. Entities like Facebook have to remain accountable to those who entrust them with such power. While Facebook has played a crucial role in enabling free speech by providing a voice to the voiceless and a means to escape state censorship, we cannot lose sight of the fact that it has simultaneously become a platform for disruptive messages, voices, and ideologies. The successful functioning of a liberal democracy can only be ensured when citizens are able to make informed decisions. Such decisions have to be made keeping in mind a plurality of perspectives and ideas. The information explosion in the digital age is capable of creating new challenges that are insidiously modulating the debate on issues where opinions can be vastly divided. Thus, while social media, on the one hand, is enhancing equal and open dialogue between citizens and policy makers; on the other hand, it has become a tool in the hands of various interest groups who have recognised its disruptive potential. This results in a paradoxical outcome where extremist views are peddled into the mainstream, thereby spreading misinformation. Established independent democracies are seeing the effect of such ripples across the globe and are concerned. Election and voting processes, the very foundation of a democratic government, stand threatened by social media manipulation. This has given rise to significant debates about the increasing concentration of power in platforms like Facebook, more so as they are said to employ business models that are privacy-intrusive and attention soliciting.[3] The effect on a stable society can be cataclysmic with citizens being 'polarized and parlayzed' by such "debates", dividing the society vertically. Less informed individuals might have a tendency to not verify information sourced from friends, or to treat information received from populist leaders as the gospel truth. [2] Facebook, Press Release, Facebook reports 1st Quarter 2021 Results, (2021) accessible at https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/facebook-reports-firstquarter-2021-results-301279518.html. [3] UNESCO, Concept Note, Media for Democracy, Journalism and Elections in times of Misinformation, (2019) accessible at: https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/wpfd2019_concept_note_en.pdf.
(3.) It is interesting to note that the Oxford Dictionary in 2016 chose "Post-Truth" as the word of the year. The adjective has been defined as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief"[4] This expression has a period relevance when it came to be recognised contextually with divided debates about the 2016 US Presidential Elections and Brexit - two important events with effects beyond their territorial limits. The obfuscation of facts, abandonment of evidentiary standards in reasoning, and outright lying in the public sphere left many aghast. A lot of blame was sought to be placed at the door of social media, it being a source of this evolving contemporary phenomenon where objective truth is becoming a commodity with diminishing value. George Orwell, in his 1943 essay titled "Looking Back on the Spanish War" had expressed "..the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies will pass into history"[5] - the words have proved to be prophetic. [4] Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year 2016, accessible at: https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2016/. [5] See K. Gessen, Introduction, 26, in All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays (G. Orwell et. al., 2008). ;