Social Media--Meghalaya

Newmai News Network

SHILLONG, Aug 3: With the Central government mooting to come up with regulation to “control” the social media, the view was today endorsed by Meghalaya commissioner and secretary of the Information and technology department, DP Wahlang here today Wahlang as one of the panelist at a discussion on the emergence of online media and its impact on society and governance, organized by the online news portal, Oh! Meghalaya said “regulation is necessary for the social media.”Wahlang said, without regulation the social media can have a huge negative impact on governance, especially in the maintenance of law and order.He said loss talks on the Internet may lead to serious law and order situations, which only strict regulations can bring such discussions under control. Wahlang added that till the time there is a Government regulation, people should self regulate themselves, when using the social media.However, many believe that aside self-regulation, Government regulations through policy guidelines are definitely not the solution because such controls have failed earlier.Samudra Gupta Kashap, senior journalist of the Indian Express gave a unique insight on an incident, when several years ago the “Lord Ganesha idol drinking milk,” spread like wildfire across India. Those were the days when there was no Facebook or Twitter.What Kashap wanted to emphasize was that rumours would piggy ride on the available medium of the day – be it social media, words of mouth or pigeon mail. Speed may vary, but the effect of rumours would nonetheless be the same.Others argue that it is next to impossible to “control” information sent through emails. It would be an invasion of privacy if the Government or any agency tries to sieve through millions of emails.What about SMSs, either you have the service or ban it totally like in Jammu and Kashmir, citing security threat. Or follow the policies of China and “control” the social media. Is Jammu and Kashmir any better from the law and order perspective after the SMS ban, is a subject of debate. China for the records is not a democracy.A marketing expert said that the best the Government could do is to gather its own resources and counter rumours and negative reports through the same media and additionally with the other Government machinery at disposal.Take the example of Meghalaya; most of its Government websites are not even updated. Wahlang should first try to rectify these and not shirk from the responsibility in disseminating “correct and timely” information to the public. In the absence of correct and timely information, rumours getting the upper hand would not be surprising.Kashap said that the Tripura Government is one of the only States that by evening all the Government websites are updated by the evening. How difficult is it for the Meghalaya Government to follow Tripura’s example?Moreover, in this digital age, the Meghalaya Government does not have a spokesperson for important departments like the Home, social welfare, education, if not all the departments.

Therefore, regulation should be considered as the last option and not to be pressed as a shortcut key to find solutions, as it would reflect on the ruling dissemination of being poor in ideas.