All the fixes require either the enactment of a data-protection law, or the amendment of our existing competition law. This can take many years. However, there is an opportunity for the government to act immediately if it wishes to, says Sunil Abraham.
'This is the first time there has been an attempt to use market forces to counter disinformation on social media,' notes Devangshu Datta.
The social media giant promised that news and views will be checked for veracity and pejorative content will be weeded out.
Mark Zuckerberg said one of his greatest regrets was that Facebook has been slow in identifying the Russian information operations in 2016.
Several of WhatsApp's early features were designed keeping Indian conditions in mind, given the choppy connectivity and existence of devices of different makes. In fact, India was the first country where WhatsApp rolled out in-app video calling services in 2016, ahead of its global launch, underlining the importance of the market for the company.
While Mahindra isn't the first person to think that building a social network out of India was a good idea, past attempts have all failed to compete with the multi-billion dollar giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and the like.
Senior counsel, Diwedi submitted that technology is advancing and we have limitations of understanding the technological developments.
Bengaluru-based InMobi and Microsoft combine their powers to break the stranglehold of Google and Facebook in the digital advertising space.
After a report mentioned that Facebook overlooked its hate speech policies in cases of BJP MLA T Raja Singh and 3 others, Shashi Tharoor, chairperson of Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, said the committee 'would certainly wish to hear from Facebook'.
'If the platform is public, then every Indian regardless of his ideology and commitment has got the right to convey his view'
He said his official FB page had been 'hacked and blocked' in 2018 but that there has been no response from the police on a complaint filed by him on the matter so far.
Zuckerberg, in an interview with The New York Times, referred to the artificial intelligence tools deployed by Facebook to detect fake accounts trying to manipulate news and influence the elections.
The country's cyber security agency CERT-In has advised Facebook users to strengthen their account privacy settings after a recent global 'data scraping' incident in the social media platform affected about 61 lakh Indians.
While the government's recent moves may have been necessary in some cases, these would have an adverse impact on the investment cycles of some of these companies. The marquee global names are suddenly finding themselves out of favour as local flavour is gaining currency in the run up to 2019 elections.
Adversarial Harmful Networks -- India Case Study, cited in Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's SEC complaints, revealed, among other things, that Facebook was a preferred platform for 'fear-mongering anti-Muslim narratives' in India, observes Devangshu Datta.
Hitting out at Gandhi, the BJP said it was his party's app that was sharing user data with his friends in Singapore.
Digital campaigns compared to billboards or even print ads not only have the power to reach wider audiences but also reduce the campaign costs. The focus on social media by political parties at election time, therefore, is hardly misplaced.
As 2018 draws to a close and the white noise of 24-hour news cycles and Twitter storms fade into the background, it is already clear that history will remember only a handful of those people, each of whom has taught us something about ourselves and the rapidly changing world in which we live.
Companies such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter are finding it extremely difficult to rope in new India heads.
'It's looking odds-on there won't be a data protection law before this edition of the Lok Sabha is dissolved.' 'This limbo has enabled all sorts of businesses that would be illegal in countries that do have data protection laws,' notes Devangshu Datta.
Sellers downloading their monthly financial reports were served with those of other vendors, leading to a breach of competitive businesses data.
Construction companies will make money building detention centres. Information technology companies will make money on the enumeration of the CAA, NRC and NPR, notes Devangshu Datta.
The Social Dilemma shows how social media is turning human beings into lab rats and zombies, notes Chintan Girish Modi.
'Indian creative and digital agencies seem to be completely missing the mark,' says advertising and media veteran Sandeep Goyal.
The report touches on variety of issues including consent, rights of children, data protection authority and right to recall data.
'...vis-a-vis state or local elections,' Prannoy Roy and Dorab Sopariwala tell Uttaran Das Gupta.
'India missed the software products revolution (and now is in danger of missing the platform revolution), complacent that we are the software experts of the world based on IT services prowess,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
'It is in electronics that the gap between where we are and where we need to be is most obvious and most persistent.' 'It is not only a national security issue, but also a commercial issue,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
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