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European Court of Justice rules Internet Search Engine Operator responsible for Processing Personal Data Published by Third Parties
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ecj-rules-internet-search-engine-operator-responsible-for-processing-personal-data-published-by-third-parties
<b>The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that an "an internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties.” The decision adds to the conundrum of maintaining a balance between freedom of expression, protecting personal data and intermediary liability.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ruling is expected to have considerable impact on reputation and privacy related takedown requests as under the decision, data subjects may approach the operator directly seeking removal of links to web pages containing personal data. Currently, users prove whether data needs to be kept online—the new rules reverse the burden of proof, placing an obligation on companies, rather than users for content regulation.</p>
<h3>A win for privacy?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ECJ ruling addresses Mario Costeja González complaint filed in 2010, against Google Spain and Google Inc., requesting that personal data relating to him appearing in search results be protected and that data which was no longer relevant be removed. Referring to <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31995L0046:en:HTML">the Directive 95/46/EC</a> of the European Parliament, the court said, that Google and other search engine operators should be considered 'controllers' of personal data. Following the decision, Google will be required to consider takedown requests of personal data, regardless of the fact that processing of such data is carried out without distinction in respect of information other than the personal data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The decision—which cannot be appealed—raises important of questions of how this ruling will be applied in practice and its impact on the information available online in countries outside the European Union. The decree forces search engine operators such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing to make judgement calls on the fairness of the information published through their services that reach over 500 million people across the twenty eight nation bloc of EU.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ECJ rules that search engines 'as a general rule,' should place the right to privacy above the right to information by the public. Under the verdict, links to irrelevant and out of date data need to be erased upon request, placing search engines in the role of controllers of information—beyond the role of being an arbitrator that linked to data that already existed in the public domain. The verdict is directed at highlighting the power of search engines to retrieve controversial information while limiting their capacity to do so in the future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ruling calls for maintaining a balance in addressing the legitimate interest of internet users in accessing personal information and upholding the data subject’s fundamental rights, but does not directly address either issues. The court also recognised, that the data subject's rights override the interest of internet users, however, with exceptions pertaining to nature of information, its sensitivity for the data subject's private life and the role of the data subject in public life. Acknowledging that data belongs to the individual and is not the right of the company, European Commissioner Viviane Reding, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=304206613078842&id=291423897690447&_ga=1.233872279.883261846.1397148393">hailed the verdict</a>, "a clear victory for the protection of personal data of Europeans".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Court stated that if data is deemed irrelevant at the time of the case, even if it has been lawfully processed initially, it must be removed and that the data subject has the right to approach the operator directly for the removal of such content. The liability issue is further complicated by the fact, that search engines such as Google do not publish the content rather they point to information that already exists in the public domain—raising questions of the degree of liability on account of third party content displayed on their services.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ECJ ruling is based on the case originally filed against Google, Spain and it is important to note that, González argued that searching for his name linked to two pages originally published in 1998, on the website of the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. The Spanish Data Protection Agency did not require La Vanguardia to take down the pages, however, it did order Google to remove links to them. Google appealed this decision, following which the National High Court of Spain sought advice from the European court. The definition of Google as the controller of information, raises important questions related to the distinction between liability of publishers and the liability of processors of information such as search engines.</p>
<h3>The 'right to be forgotten'</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The decision also brings to the fore, the ongoing debate and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/04/britain-opt-out-right-to-be-forgotten-law">fragmented opinions within the EU</a>, on the right of the individual to be forgotten. The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16677370">'right to be forgotten</a>' has evolved from the European Commission's wide-ranging plans of an overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive. The plans for the law included allowing people to request removal of personal data with an obligation of compliance for service providers, unless there were 'legitimate' reasons to do otherwise. Technology firms rallying around issues of freedom of expression and censorship, have expressed concerns about the reach of the bill. Privacy-rights activist and European officials have upheld the notion of the right to be forgotten, highlighting the right of the individual to protect their honour and reputation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These issues have been controversial amidst EU member states with the UK's Ministry of Justice claiming the law 'raises unrealistic and unfair expectations' and has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/04/britain-opt-out-right-to-be-forgotten-law">sought to opt-out</a> of the privacy laws. The Advocate General of the European Court <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=138782&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=362663#Footref91">Niilo Jääskinen's opinion</a>, that the individual's right to seek removal of content should not be upheld if the information was published legally, contradicts the verdict of the ECJ ruling. The European Court of Justice's move is surprising for many and as Richard Cumbley, information-management and data protection partner at the law firm Linklaters <a href="http://turnstylenews.com/2014/05/13/europe-union-high-court-establishes-the-right-to-be-forgotten/">puts it</a>, “Given that the E.U. has spent two years debating this right as part of the reform of E.U. privacy legislation, it is ironic that the E.C.J. has found it already exists in such a striking manner."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The economic implications of enforcing a liability regime where search engine operators censor legal content in their results aside, the decision might also have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and access to information. Google <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/right-to-be-forgotten-eu-court-google-search-results">called the decision</a> “a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general,” and that the company would take time to analyze the implications. While the implications of the decision are yet to be determined, it is important to bear in mind that while decisions like these are public, the refinements that Google and other search engines will have to make to its technology and the judgement calls on the fairness of the information available online are not public.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ECJ press release is available <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-05/cp140070en.pdf">here</a> and the actual judgement is available <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?pro=&lgrec=en&nat=or&oqp=&lg=&dates=&language=en&jur=C%2CT%2CF&cit=none%252CC%252CCJ%252CR%252C2008E%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252C%252Ctrue%252Cfalse%252Cfalse&num=C-131%252F12&td=%3BALL&pcs=Oor&avg">here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ecj-rules-internet-search-engine-operator-responsible-for-processing-personal-data-published-by-third-parties'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ecj-rules-internet-search-engine-operator-responsible-for-processing-personal-data-published-by-third-parties</a>
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No publisherjyotiFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial MediaInternet GovernanceIntermediary Liability2014-05-14T14:18:46ZBlog EntryNetworks: What You Don’t See is What You (for)Get
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get
<b>When I start thinking about DML (digital media and learning) and other such “networks” that I am plugged into, I often get a little confused about what to call them.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog entry was originally <a class="external-link" href="http://dmlcentral.net/blog/nishant-shah/networks-what-you-don%E2%80%99t-see-what-you-forget">published in DML Central</a> on April 17, 2014 and mirrored in <a class="external-link" href="http://hybridpublishing.org/2014/05/what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-forget/">Hybrid Publishing Lab</a> on May 13, 2014.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Are we an ensemble of actors? A cluster of friends? A conference of scholars? A committee of decision makers? An array of perspectives? A group of associates? A play-list of voices? I do not pose these questions rhetorically, though I do enjoy rhetoric. I want to look at this inability to name collectives and the confusions and ambiguity it produces as central to our conversations around digital thinking. In particular, I want to look at the notion of the network. Because, I am sure, that if we were to go for the most neutralised digital term to characterise this collection that we all weave in and out of, it would have to be the network. We are a network.<a href="#fn1" name="fr1">[1] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But, what does it mean to say that we are a network? The network is a very strange thing. Especially within the realms of the Internet, which, in itself, purports to be a giant network, the network is self-explanatory, self-referential and completely denuded of meaning. A network is benign, and like the digital, that foregrounds the network aesthetic, the network is inscrutable. You cannot really touch a network or name it. You cannot shape it or define it. You can produce momentary snapshots of it, but you can never contain it or limit it. The network cannot be held or materially felt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And yet, the network touches us. We live within networked societies. We engage in networking – network as a verb. We are a network – network as a noun. We belong to networks – network as a collective. In all these poetic mechanisms of network, there is perhaps the core of what we want to talk about today – the tension between the local and the global and the way in which we will understand the Internet and then the frameworks of governance and policy that surround it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Let me begin with a genuine question. What predates the network? Because the network is a very new word. The first etymological trace of the network is in 1887, where it was used as a verb, within broadcast and communications models, to talk about an outreach. As in ‘to cover with a network.’ The idea of a network as a noun is older where in the 1550s, the idea of ‘net-like arrangements of threads, wires, etc.’ was first identified as a network. In the second half of the industrial 19th Century, the term network was used for understanding an extended, complex, interlocking system. The idea of network as a set of connected people emerged in the latter half of the 20thCentury. I am pointing at these references to remind us that the ubiquitous presence of the network, as a practice, as a collective, and as a metaphor that seeks to explain the rest of the world around us, is a relatively new phenomenon. And we need to be aware of the fact, that the network, especially as it is understood in computing and digital technologies, is a particular model through which objects, individuals and the transactions between them are imagined.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For anybody who looks at the network itself – especially the digital network that we have accepted as the basis on which everything from social relationships on Facebook to global financial arcs are defined – we know that the network is in a state of crisis.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Networks of crises: The Bangalore North East Exodus</h3>
<p>Let me illustrate the multiple ways in which the relationship between networks and crisis has been imagined through a particular story. In August 2012, I woke up one morning to realise that I was living in a city of crisis. Bangalore, which is one of my homes, where the largest preoccupations to date have been about bad roads, stray dogs, and occasionally, the lack of a nightlife, was suddenly a space that people wanted to flee and occupy simultaneously.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Through the technology mediated gossip mill that produced rumours faster than the speed of a digital click, imagination of terror, danger, and material harm found currency. The city suddenly witnessed thousands of people running away from it, heading back to their imagined homelands. It was called the North East exodus, where, following an ethnic-religious clash between two traditionally hostile communities in Assam, there were rumours that the large North East Indian community in Bangalore was going to be attacked by certain Muslim factions at the end of Ramadan.<br />The media spectacle of the exodus around questions of religion, ethnicity, regionalism and belonging only emphasised the fact that there is a new way of connectedness that we live in – the network society that no longer can be controlled, contained or corrected by official authorities and their voices. Despite a barrage of messages from law enforcement and security authorities, on email, on large screens on the roads, and on our cell phones, there was a growing anxiety and a spiralling information explosion that was producing an imaginary situation of precariousness and bodily harm. For me, this event, was one of the first signalling how to imagine the network society in a crisis, especially when it came to Bangalore, which is supposed to represent the Silicon dreams of an India that is shining brightly. While there is much to be unpacked about the political motivations and the ecologies of fear that our migrant lives in global cities are enshrined in, I want to specifically focus on what the emergence of this network society means.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is an imagination, especially in cities like Bangalore, of digital technologies as necessarily plugging in larger networks of global information consumption. The idea that technology plugs us into the transnational circuits is so huge that it only tunes us toward an idea of connectedness that is always outward looking, expanding the scope of nation, community and body.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the ways in which information was circulating during this phenomenon reminds us that digital networks are also embedded in local practices of living and survival. Most of the time, these networks are so natural and such an integral part of our crucial mechanics of urban life that they appear as habits, without any presence or visibility. In times of crises – perceived or otherwise – these networks make themselves visible, to show that they are also inward looking. But in this production of hyper-visible spectacles, the network works incessantly to make itself invisible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Which is why, in the case of the North East exodus, the steps leading to the resolution of the crisis, constructed and fuelled by networks is interesting. As government and civil society efforts to control the rumours and panic reached an all-time high and people continued to flee the city, the government eventually went in to regulate the technology itself. There were expert panel discussions about whether the digital technologies are to be blamed for this rumour mill. There was a ban on mass-messaging and there was a cap on the number of messages which could be sent on a day by each mobile phone subscriber. The Information and Broadcast Ministry along with the Information Technologies cell, started monitoring and punishing people for false and inflammatory information.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Network as Crisis: The unexpected visibility of a network</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What, then, was the nature of the crisis in this situation? It is a question worth exploring. We would imagine that this crisis was a crisis about the nationwide building of mega-cities filled with immigrant bodies that are not allowed their differences because they all have to be cosmopolitan and mobile bodies. The crisis could have been read as one of neo-liberal flatness in imagining the nation and its fragments, that hides the inherent and historical sites of conflict under the seductive rhetoric of economic development. And yet, when we look at the operationalization of the resolutions, it looked as if the crisis was the appearance and the visibility of the hitherto hidden local networks of information and communication.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In her analysis of networks, Brown University’s Wendy Chun posits that this is why networks are an opaque metaphor. If the function of metaphor is to explain, through familiarity, objects which are new to us, the network as an explanatory paradigm presents a new conundrum. While the network presumes and exteriority that it seeks to present, while the network allows for a subjective interiority of the actor and its decisions, while the network grants visibility and form to the everyday logic of organisation, what the network actually seeks to explain is itself. Or, in less evocative terms, the network is not only the framework through which we analyse, but it is also the object of analyses. Once the network has been deployed as a paradigm through which to understand a crisis, once the network has made itself visible, all our efforts are driven at explaining and strengthening, and almost like digital mothers, comfort the network back into its peaceful existence as infrastructure. We develop better tools to regulate the network. We define new parameters to mine the data more effectively. We develop policies to govern and govern through the network with greater transparency and ease.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thus, in the case of the North East exodus, instead of addressing the larger issues of conservative parochialism, an increasing backlash by right-wing governments and a growing hostility that emerges from these cities that nobody possesses and nobody belongs to, the efforts were directed at blaming technology as the site where the problem is located and the network as the object that needs to be controlled. What emerged was a series of corrective mechanisms and a set of redundant regulations that controlled the number of text messages that people were able to send per day or policing the Internet for spreading rumours. The entire focus was on information management, as if the reason for the mass exodus of people from the NE Indian states and the sense of fragility that the city had been immersed in, was all due to the pervasive and ubiquitous information gadgets and their ability to proliferate in p2p (peer-to-peer) environments outside of the government’s control. This lack of exteriority to the network is something that very few critical voices have pointed out.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Duncan Watts, the father of network computing, working through the logic of nodes, traffic and edges, has suggested there is a great problem in the ways in which we understand the process of network making. I am paraphrasing his complex mathematical text that explains the production of physical networks – what he calls the small worlds – and pointing out his strong critique about how the social scientists engage with networks. In the social sciences’ imagination of networks, there is a messy exteriority – fuzzy, complex and often not reducible to patterns or basic principles. The network is a distilling of the messy exteriority, a representation of the complex interplay between different objects and actors, and a visual mapping of things as they are. Which is to say, we imagine there is a material reality and the network is a tool by which this reality, or at least parts of this reality, are mapped and represented to us in patterns which can help us understand the true nature of this reality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Drawing from practices of network modelling and building, Watts proved, that we have the equation wrong. The network is not a representation of reality but the ontology of reality. The network is not about trying to make sense of an exteriority. Instead, the network is an abstract and ideological map that constructs the reality in a particular way. In other words, the network precedes the real, and because of its ability to produce objective, empiricist and reductive principles (constantly filtering out that which is not important to the logic or the logistics of the network design), it then gives us a reality that is produced through the network principles. To make it clear, the network representation is not the derivative of the real but the blue-print of the real. And the real as we access it, through these networked tools, is not the raw and messy real but one that is constructed and shaped by the network in those ways. The network, then, needs to be understood, examined and critiqued, not as something that represents the natural, but something that shapes our understanding of the natural itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the case of the Bangalore North East Exodus, the network and its visibility created a problem for us – and the problem was, that the network, which is supposed to be infrastructure, and hence, by nature invisible, had suddenly become visible. We needed to make sure that it was shamed, blamed, named and tamed so that we can go back to our everyday practices of regulation, governance and policy.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">The Intersectional Network</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What I want to emphasise, then, is that this binary of local versus the global, or local working in tandem with global, or the quaintly hybridised glocal are not very generative in thinking of policy and politics around the Internet. What we need is to recognise what gets hidden in this debate. What becomes visible when it is not supposed to? What remains invisible beyond all our efforts? And how do we develop a framework that actually moves beyond these binary modes of thinking, where the resolution is either to collapse them or to pretend that they do not exist in the first place? Working with frameworks like the network makes us aware of the ways in which these ideas of the global and the local are constructed and continue to remain the focus of our conversations, making invisible the real questions at hand.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hence, we need to think of networks, not as spaces of intersection, but in need of intersections. The networks, because of their predatory, expanding nature, and the constant interaction with the edges, often appear as dynamic and inclusive. We need to now think of the networks as in need of intersections – or of intersectional networks. Developing intersections, of temporality, of geography and of contexts are great. But, we need to move one step beyond – and look at the couplings of aspiration, inspiration, autonomy, control, desire, belonging and precariousness that often mark the new digital subjects. And our policies, politics and regulations will have to be tailored to not only stop the person abandoning her life and running to a place of safety, not only stop the rumours within the Information and communication networks, not only create stop-gap measures of curbing the flows of gossip, but to actually account for the human conditions of life and living.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>]. This post has grown from conversations across three different locations. The first draft of this talk was presented at the Habits of Living Conference, organised by the Centre for Internet & Society and Brown University, in Bangalore. A version of this talk found great inputs from the University of California Humanities Research Institute in Irvine, where I found great ways of sharpening the focus. The responses at the Milton Wolf Seminar at the America Austria Foundation, Austria, to this story, helped in making it more concrete to the challenges that the “network” throws to our digital modes of thinking. I am very glad to be able to put the talk into writing this time, and look forward to more responses.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-05-28T09:30:45ZBlog EntryFacebook launches FB Newswire for journalists; loses part of its immunity under IT Act 2000
https://cis-india.org/news/dna-amrita-madhukalya-april-26-2014-facebook-launches-fb-newswire-for-journalists-loses-part-of-its-immunity-under-it-act-2000
<b>A bus accident in California, a fire in New Jersey and another in Vasant Kunj, NASA's successful test flight of its vertical take-off and landing craft, a ceremony to honour the sherpas who died during an avalanche at the Everest last week, and, Israel's suspension of talks with Palestinian authorities. These were some of the news that were disseminated on the first day of Facebook's newest social tool: a newswire to aid journalists and newsrooms.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-facebook-launches-fb-newswire-for-journalists-loses-part-of-its-immunity-under-it-act-2000-1982198">published in DNA</a> on April 26, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a tie-up with News Corp's Storyful, Facebook launched the Newswire late on Thursday to function as a tool to aid journalists and newsrooms to "find, share and embed newsworthy content from Facebook in the media they produce". Apart from Facebook, the tool is also accessible on twitter at @FBNewswire.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"FB Newswire aggregates newsworthy content shared publicly on Facebook by individuals and organisations across the world for journalists to use in their reporting. This will include original photos, videos and status updates posted by people on the front lines of major events like protests, elections and sporting events," said Andy Mitchell, director of news and global media partnerships at Facebook, via a Facebook blog post.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook has been in the centre of the internet security debate for a while; claiming immunity from legal provisions citing its non-curatorial approach and also denying responsibility for the news the social media network produces. "With the launch of this new tool, Facebook is not only curating information, it also directs knowledge of the content its produces through the newswire. That makes it legally responsible under the Information Technology Act (2000)", says Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The move is also seen as Facebook attempting to reach out to journalists, and eat away into the space that Twitter has occupied in the dissemination of information. Facebook has largely been operating as a social media network; and its move into the new-making space is seen as an expansion in that direction.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"There might be some competition for journalists and traditional media outlets. But largely, Facebook's tie-ups with broadcasters and political parties, where it has been promoting content in exchange for compensation, has not been transparent," says Abraham.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With more than a billion users, Facebook is considered the largest social media network. In a statement on April 24, Facebook revealed that more than half of the world's internet population now uses the social media network and recorded a 72% increase in its revenues in the first quarter of the year.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/dna-amrita-madhukalya-april-26-2014-facebook-launches-fb-newswire-for-journalists-loses-part-of-its-immunity-under-it-act-2000'>https://cis-india.org/news/dna-amrita-madhukalya-april-26-2014-facebook-launches-fb-newswire-for-journalists-loses-part-of-its-immunity-under-it-act-2000</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaIT ActInternet GovernanceSocial Media2014-05-06T05:41:03ZNews ItemLok sabha polls: Social media companies launch special pages for polls
https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-10-2014-varuni-khosla-lok-sabha-polls
<b>Internet and social media giants such as Google and Facebook have launched special campaigns, pages and services around the Indian Lok Sabha elections to make the most of the world's largest democratic exercise that kicked off on Monday.</b>
<p>The article by Varuni Khosla was <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-04-10/news/49031894_1_social-media-companies-election-tracker-simplify360">published in the Economic Times</a> on April 10, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Big and small social media companies are looking to use the poll fever to augment their businesses by wooing new users and generating more traffic.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Google, for example, recently launched an election page along with a Google Hangout series and a 'Pledge to Vote' and 'Know Your Candidates' campaign that featured 97-year-old Shyam Saran Negi from Himachal Pradesh who has voted in every election in Independent India. Twitter has come up with a 'Discover' section of curated tweets while Facebook has launched an election trackers as well as a 'Facebook Talks' page.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian social platform Vebbler has unveiled 'Ungli' campaign while telecom operator MTS has tied up with Social Samosa for an election tracker.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"While in the short run it may just be a branding exercise, in the long run it could result in more sign-ups and convert into a wider user base for these companies," said Bhupendra Khanal, CEO and co-founder at social business intelligence company Simplify360.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"But it also shows how important India is as a market for these companies — that they are looking at generating information beyond short-term revenues," he added. Khanal said the most popular hashtags with mentions in last 30 days are #Elections2014, which got 46,000 mentions, and #Election2014:, with 36,000 mentions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This shows that social media users are following and discussing the elections and candidates constantly. Raheel Khursheed, head of news, politics and government at Twitter India, said election candidates across political parties are using Twitter platform to break news, answer questions and post 'selfies'.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This page lets voters see all the official Twitter feeds from political parties and candidates and will let voters make an informed choice before they go and vote," he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, executive director at non-profit charitable organisation Centre for Internet and Society, said social media companies are looking at earning close to 10% of the entire media spend by political parties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"When they have election related features on their site, they can tell their advertisers (political parties) that they are a serious platform that talks politics," he said. "Also, when a user clicks on these ads that are being put up by parties, social media companies are able to gain granular information about the user's likes and dislikes and therefore figure out how to advertise to them in the future," Abraham added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These make it doubly attractive for social media companies to have such services.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, experts say that it doesn't cost much at all to set up these special pages and launch campaigns. "Spends on these campaigns could cost social media companies just about Rs 10-20 lakh - including making videos and setting up pages," a social media agency head said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This person said that about 60 million people have been discussing Indian Elections on social media, even though there are just about 40 million Twitter users in India. "So, a lot of interest has been taken in the elections from other countries," the person added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Close to 65% of India's population is under the age of 35 and more and more young people in the country are using social media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) estimates that a well-executed social media campaign can swing 3%–4% of votes. "Digital advertising in India has increased by 30% this year and around Rs 3402 crore is expected to be spent in 2014. Of this, social media spend is close to Rs 300 crore according to IMRB," says James Drake-Brockman, head of digital marketing division, DMG :: events.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-10-2014-varuni-khosla-lok-sabha-polls'>https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-10-2014-varuni-khosla-lok-sabha-polls</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-04-14T11:28:54ZNews ItemThe politics of Facebook
https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-april-1-2014-shweta-taneja-the-politics-of-facebook
<b>With the social media becoming an important political battleground, is Facebook affecting friendships and trying to influence our political leanings? </b>
<div class="p" id="U200345218720FvG" style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Shweta Tiwari was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/vmYyeUOmMYJUqHoaYKMgnJ/The-politics-of-Facebook.html">published in Livemint</a> on April 1, 2014. Dr. Nishant Shah is quoted.
<hr />
</div>
<div class="p" style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div class="p" style="text-align: justify; ">When social activist Uthara Narayanan, 32, posted an innocuous article link on the Gujarat riots on Facebook in January, she was in for a surprise. An old friend from college fiercely defended Gujarat chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Narendra%20Modi">Narendra Modi</a></span>, getting abrasive and personal in the post. “I had known her for more than 14 years and yet hadn’t seen this side to her,” says Narayanan. “I didn’t realize when she had gone off and gotten such strong views on the debate.”</div>
<div class="p" style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div class="p" style="text-align: justify; ">From then on Narayanan decided to stay away from her friend though they live in the same city. “It left a bad taste in my mouth and marred our friendship for me, though I am still Facebook friends with her.” Almost as if agreeing with her, Facebook’s wall automatically started keeping her friend’s posts away from her wall—thanks to the EdgeRank algorithm.</div>
<div class="p" style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<h3 class="p" style="text-align: justify; ">Like-like stick together</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">EdgeRank, the Facebook algorithm that decides which posts to show in your newsfeed, bases its decision on three factors: an affinity score between the user and the one who’s created the post, the type of post (comment, like, create or tag), and time lapsed since it was created. The first basically means that you will see posts from friends you have interacted with and like to interact with on the social network.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In January, Catherine Grevet, a PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, studied this algorithm in the light of politics and concluded that people tend to get attracted to circles of friends who affirm to their own political leanings, all because of Facebook’s algorithms. “People are mainly friends with those who share similar values and interests,” Grevet wrote in the study. “As a result, they aren’t exposed to opposing viewpoints.” Grevet presented the study at the 17th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing in the US in February.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Alok Sharma, a Mumbai-based creative writer who used to be a political cartoonist, says social media has led to Indians opening up. “We are taught to be a little politically correct, especially in face-to-face conversations. But when it comes to social networking sites, Indians express their views like fanatics,” he says. He blocked a couple of Facebook friends after a spate of personal comments on one of his posts. “My friends know me and get the crux of what I might be trying to say in a thread but there are others who are on my Friends list but don’t understand the context and take it all wrong.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The misunderstanding arises because many of us post on the network as we would speak among friends and not as we would say things in public. “Facebook is not a community, a clique or a group of friends,” says Nishant Shah, director of research at Bangalore-based non-profit The Centre for Internet and Society. “It is just a network,” he says. That means that not all people on your Facebook list are friends—you are just connected to them on the network. You might have a professional relationship with them, be teammates or acquaintances or colleagues, but you don’t know them personally. Given that the average Facebook user has 229 Facebook friends—according to the numbers from US think tank Pew Research Center’s Internet Project which tracks statistics about the social network—that’s just too many people to even know personally.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The audience on the social network is much larger than the friend list, including Facebook itself, which, if it finds your comment problematic, will censor even before a complaint is produced,” says Shah. A post on Facebook or a comment or a like, can get you in trouble not just with other individuals or communities who take offence but even the law, as happened to a girl in 2012 who put up a post criticizing the shutdown of Mumbai after the death of Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Though used like it, Facebook is not a conversation,” says Shah, “Because everything you write is archived and recorded. And can be used against you if need be.”</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">A medium to shout in</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But would you shout at a stranger on the street as you do on Facebook? Basav Biradar, a programme manager based in Bangalore, actively posts on politics and comments on Facebook. He feels most people on Facebook give strong opinions that are not well-informed. “A lot of these opinions are dependent on propaganda and campaigns rather than facts. Why don’t people do some homework before forming an opinion?” With over 100 million Indians active on the social network, however, an uninformed opinion is hardly reason to stop anyone from posting, commenting, liking, offending and getting offended through posts on Facebook.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shah calls this phenomenon cyber-bullying in politics. “Specific vocal and passionate groups and communities have emerged who silence any voice of dissent or critique by trolling the dissident,” says Shah. “They do not need anonymity. They don’t try to hide who they are. They feel so empowered by the backing of the politicos who are either hiring or supporting them, that they have risen in hordes and are stifling the space for dissent and questioning even more effectively than they have been able to do in real life.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It’s almost like standing in a rally and hearing a swarm of slogans. Sashi Kumar, chairman of the trust Media Development Foundation that runs the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, gives a similar analogy. He believes that the language of communication on Facebook is not written but oral. “Writing implies a well thought through opinion, whereas speech is responsive and involved. Within the Internet, there’s a strange morphing of written form which is expressed in a way of oral communication. You speak to someone on Facebook, you respond, you hear, you react, you communicate, you talk.” He says that this morphing is leading society back to more oral forms of communication where written forms like newspapers will be a thing of the past.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Replacing traditional media</h3>
<table class="invisible">
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/PoliticsofFB.png" alt="Politics of FB" class="image-inline" title="Politics of FB" /></th>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>With surprising events like the support for Jan Lokpal law, Pink Chaddi campaign and even the backlash against the December 2012 gang rape case in Delhi, social media seems to have somewhere, somehow made all of us more participative, more aware and more active in political and social spaces.</p>
<p>Most politicians have active Twitter and Facebook accounts. Most newspapers and even news channels quote their feed as statements when summing up news. Social networks have become almost mainstream. So much so that when earlier in March Modi attacked Bihar chief minister <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Nitish%20Kumar">Nitish Kumar</a></span> at a political rally in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Kumar’s response was detailed, and through a Facebook post.</p>
</td>
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</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A joint study by the IRIS Knowledge Foundation, a public service initiative of business and financial information provider IRIS Business Services Pvt. Ltd, and the industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India, suggests that social media use is now sufficiently widespread to influence the outcome of the next general election and consequently government formation. The March research, which studied Facebook’s own data, claims that among the social media spaces, Facebook users have the maximum clout.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kumar agrees and feels that news now is more user-generated: “It’s the people who want to pursue their own news, know more about their own news, create news. In a way it democratizes journalism. People are talking more about issues, giving opinions and comparing notes. Politics has shifted from the streets to these social medias.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The future holds more participation, and a sense of being a stakeholder in the political process. An “enlarging of political participation”, as Kumar puts it. “Of course because everyone has a mike, a mouthpiece now, there will be lot of more trivial conversation and hairsplitting which might not add up to anything, but the important thing is that people are engaging themselves politically. We are on the streets. All because of technology.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-april-1-2014-shweta-taneja-the-politics-of-facebook'>https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-april-1-2014-shweta-taneja-the-politics-of-facebook</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-04-03T11:30:51ZNews ItemIndia's social media election battle
https://cis-india.org/news/bbc-news-india-atish-patel-indias-social-media-election-battle
<b>Ahead of the general elections, political parties in India are attempting to woo voters on social media for the first time.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Atish Patel was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-26762391">published by BBC</a> on March 31, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Politicians are taking part in Google+ Hangouts, televised interviews organised by Facebook and using the Facebook-owned smart phone messaging app WhatsApp to connect with millions of tech-savvy urban voters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India's 16th general election - to be held in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-26445322" title="India names general election dates">nine phases</a> over April and May - will be closely fought, with some observers saying social media will play a vital role in deciding which party wins the most seats.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to a report published in April 2013 by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and the Mumbai-based Iris Knowledge Foundation, Facebook users will "wield a tremendous influence" over the results of the polls in 160 of India's 543 constituencies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It's a finding political parties have taken note of, with major contenders like the ruling Congress party and main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earmarking 2-5% of their election budgets for social media, according to an October 2013 study by IAMAI and Mumbai-based market researcher IMRB International.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Big data</h3>
<p>During the last general election in 2009, social media usage in India was minuscule.</p>
<p>Today, however, Facebook has 93 million users and Twitter has an estimated 33 million accounts in the country. Many political parties have beefed up their online presence as a result.</p>
<p>The main opposition BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, was among the first Indian politicians to set up a website and today is on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.</p>
<p>His main rival, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party's undeclared candidate for PM, however, doesn't have a website and doesn't use any of the three major social networks.</p>
<p>Anti-corruption campaigner-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal has amassed 1.5 million followers on Twitter since joining in November 2011, a year before he launched his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and over two years after Mr Modi, who has 3.6 million followers, opened his account.</p>
<p>"Now no serious politician is seen as being able to avoid social media altogether," said Congress government minister Shashi Tharoor, who until he was overtaken by Mr Modi last July, was the most followed Indian politician on Twitter.</p>
<p>"It does have a significant reach in certain segments of the population and as far as we're concerned, that's important enough to pay attention to and clearly the opposition is paying attention to it too," he added.</p>
<p>Taking a leaf from US President Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, India's parties are using tools to crunch the insurmountable amounts of information social media generates - what's known as big data analytics.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Rahul.png" alt="Rahul" class="image-inline" title="Rahul" /></th>
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<td><span>Rahul Gandhi doesn't have a website and doesn't use any of the three major social networks</span></td>
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</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pinstorm, a digital marketing agency used by some of India's biggest companies to monitor what is being discussed online, now has political parties as clients.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From its Mumbai office, the agency has been collecting, storing and analysing tens of thousands of political statements from over 100 online platforms daily for the past six months to allow parties to find supporters and tweak their political message.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The agency is able to track conversations at national and local level, making it a useful tool for both national and regional parties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The anti-corruption AAP, taking part in its first general election after an impressive debut in local polls in Delhi last year, uses Pinstorm to "compare how we are faring against others", said Ankit Lal, the party's social media strategist.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Professor Amit Sheth and a team of researchers at the Ohio Centre of Excellence in Knowledge-enabled Computing at Wright State University have also been <a href="http://knoesis-twit.cs.wright.edu/twitris_dev/indiaelection/insights/">tracking political sentiment online</a> since July.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He says data collected from social media could in the future replace opinion polls, which many observers say are often rigged in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"With social media data, we can measure sentiments, for example, before a rally, during the rally, and post-analysis. It's much more frequent [than opinion polls]," Mr Sheth said.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">'Dipstick of the elite'</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are some, however, who are doubtful about social media's expected effect.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media "is not a true dipstick. It really is only a dipstick of the elite," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sceptics believe with so many Indians illiterate and lacking internet access, particularly in rural swathes of the country, it is still essential for political leaders to hold rallies and spend on billboard and newspaper advertising to reach the majority of the 814 million-strong electorate.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Parties are also interacting with voters on their mobile devices and it makes sense.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/FB.png" alt="FB" class="image-inline" title="FB" /></th>
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<td>Facebook has 93 million users in India</td>
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</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are more mobile phones in India today than toilets, according to the latest census data, and just over half of the country's 1.2 billion population owns one.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Mobile is very integral to our strategy," said Arvind Gupta, who heads the BJP's IT and social media cell.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of the BJP's most unique electioneering tools allows potential voters to listen in on Mr Modi's rally speeches in real time on their phones from anywhere in India. "It's our own innovation," said Mr Gupta.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The number of smartphone users is growing in India and it's how most of the country's web users go online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That's why WhatsApp, recently purchased by Facebook, is being used by the likes of the BJP and Congress to send photos, videos and messages to potential voters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"No other medium gives as much mass, simultaneous reach as mobile phones in India today," said Milind Pathak from One97 Communications, a Delhi-based mobile marketing firm.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Political parties like AAP have signed up tens of thousands of members by urging people to give them a missed call for free - party officers then get in touch and formally enrol them as supporters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Looking forward, I think the medium will continue to be a heavily-invested area for a political party," Mr Pathak said.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/bbc-news-india-atish-patel-indias-social-media-election-battle'>https://cis-india.org/news/bbc-news-india-atish-patel-indias-social-media-election-battle</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-04-03T09:37:03ZNews ItemThe Age of Shame
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-march-30-2014-nishant-shah-the-age-of-shame
<b>The ability to capture private images is breeding a dangerous form of digital shaming. Within the online space, where wonderments often run rife, and conspiracy theories travel at the speed of light, there are many dark recesses where netizens half-jokingly, self-referentially, in a spirit of part-truth, part-exaggeration, often wonder on what the real reason is for the internet to exist.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. Nishant Shah's column was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-age-of-shame/99/">published in the Indian Express</a> on March 30, 2014.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within the online space, where wonderments often run rife, and conspiracy theories travel at the speed of light, there are many dark recesses where netizens half-jokingly, self-referentially, in a spirit of part-truth, part-exaggeration, often wonder on what the real reason is for the internet to exist.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One suggestion, and probably the most persuasive one, drawing from the Broadway musical Avenue Q, is that the internet was made for porn. Positing a competing argument is a clowder of cat lovers, who insist that the internet was made for cats. Or, at least, it is definitely made of cats.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From the first internet memes like LOL Cats (and then subsequently Grumpy Cat, Ceiling Cat and Hipster Kitty), which had pictures of cats used for strong social, cultural and political commentary, to Caturday — a practice where users on the Web’s largest unmoderated discussion board, 4Chan, post pictures of cats every Saturday — cats are everywhere.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I want to add to this list and suggest that the internet was meant for “shame”. With the explosion of the interactive Web, more people getting access to mobile computing devices, and more websites inviting users to write reviews, leak pictures, expose videos and reveal more personal and private information online, there seems to be no doubt that we live in the age of digital shaming.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The aesthetic, also embedded in peer-to-peer platforms like chatroulete, or snapchat, where people often engage in sexting, is also becoming common in popular media. The ability to spy, to capture private images and videos, and expose the people who violate some imagined moral code has dangerous implications for the future of the Web and our own private lives. And as more of it goes unpunished and gets naturalised in our everyday digital practices, it is time to realise that the titillation it offers through scandal is far outweighed by the growing stress and grief it causes to victims. While there are some values to public shaming that ask for more transparency and accountability, we need to reflect on how it is creating societies of shame.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It sometimes emerges as an attempt to shame governments, private institutions, places of consumption, for compromise of the rights of the users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anything, from denial of service and corruption in government offices to bad food and substandard goods in restaurants and malls, is now reported in an attempt to shame the people responsible for it. This kind of “citizen journalism” allows for individual voices and experiences to be heard and documented, and the people in question are forced to be accountable for their jobs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From fascinating websites like IPaidABribe.com to restaurant review sites like Zomato, we have seen an interesting phenomenon of “naming and shaming” that gives voice to individual discontent and anger. And so commonplace has this become, that most managers of different services and goods track, respond and mitigate the situation, often offering apologies and freebies to make up for that one bad experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most big organisations have Twitter handles that function in a similar way, addressing grievances of users in real time, and helping to deliver better services and products. It is a new era of granular accountability that ensures that individual acts of discrimination, neglect or just disservice get reported and have direct impact on those responsible for it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the other end of the spectrum of this call for transparent and accountable structures, is the phenomenon of shaming and cyber bullying that is also increasing, especially with digital natives who spend more time online. On social networking sites, it has become almost passé, for personal and sensitive information to be leaked in order to shame and expose a person’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Especially for young teens who might be in a disadvantaged position — for reasons of sexual orientation, location, practices or interests — the shaming through exposing their private information often creates extremely traumatic conditions, even leading people to take their lives.<br />Shaming takes up particularly dire forms on websites and platforms that are designed to leak this kind of information. Hunter Moore, who has recently earned the title of being the most hated man on the internet, was the founder of a revenge-porn website, which invited male users to reveal sexual and embarrassing pictures of their former girlfriends and even spouses, to reveal them in compromising positions and shame them for being “sluts”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moore’s website has been shut down now and he is facing multiple charges of felony in the US, but that one site was just the tip of the iceberg. Slut shaming and trying to humiliate women has become a strong underground practice on the dark web. Hidden by anonymity and the security that the Web can sometimes offer, people betray the trust of their friends and lovers and expose them to be punished by voyeuristic audiences.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-march-30-2014-nishant-shah-the-age-of-shame'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-march-30-2014-nishant-shah-the-age-of-shame</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-04-04T04:05:31ZBlog EntryNo to homosexuals, yes to their vote
https://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-yogesh-pawar-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote
<b>The ad appears at the bottom of the page. It has BJP’s symbol and Modi’s photograph displayed prominently. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Yogesh Pawar was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote-1970889">published in DNA</a> on March 21, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a hotly contested election where every vote will count, the scramble among political parties to scrounge for votes is understandable. Yet, what would you make of a party that hates a community but wants their votes? The BJP had opposed any move to nullify Supreme Court's order re-criminalizing consensual sex among consenting adults, dealing a huge setback to any move to scrap or dilute Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Party chief Rajnath Singh went to the extent of saying, "Gay sex is not natural and we cannot support something which is unnatural."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is why the gay community across the country has expressed surprise to find a BJP ad asking for votes on the popular gay social media dating website grindr. The ad which will obviously lead to to a lot of red faces in the BJP, appears at the bottom of the page has both the party' lotus symbol and their prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's photograph displayed prominently. It exhorts voters to vote BJP to stop price rise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This exposes the party's hypocrisy," guffawed India's pioneering gay rights activist Ashok Row Kavi. "So you want our votes and not us. I'm glad this has happened. The country will finally know the true face of falsehood of the party."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He's not alone. Many from the community have taken to social media sites like facebook and twitter to make their disgust known. Counselling psychologist Deepak Kashyap is one of them. "So, #BJP says it'd never support the "unnatural act" of homosexuality, but #NaMO has no qualms about asking for support on gay dating apps, like grindr! What a sham(e)!" he posted.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Linking most homophobia with an intense struggle with latent homosexuality Kashyap, the University of Bristol pass-out and equal rights activist for the LGBTQ community told <b>dna</b>, "Whatever makes you jump up in your chair, essentially makes you insecure about your own condition in some way or the other." According to him, similar results were shown in a research called 'Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal?', by Georgia University published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When reached for comment, the BJP's National IT head Arvind Gupta said, "I am not aware of such an ad being placed on this website. If this is indeed true we will take it up with the advertising agency responsible." BJP spokesperson and Lok Sabha candidate from New Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi too told dna, "This is the first I am hearing of such an advertisement," and added, "In the first instance it seems like a deliberate act of mischief in the poll season to embarrass our party."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Centre for Internet and Society, Executive Director Sunil Abraham felt the ad on grindr may have to do more with the lack of knowledge than anything else. "We find many ads by top Indian corporate brands on pirate websites. This happens because people are still not completely conversant with negotiating with advertising networks when it comes to websites."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-yogesh-pawar-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote'>https://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-yogesh-pawar-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaSocial NetworkingInternet Governance2014-04-04T09:54:39ZNews ItemWhen politics gets social
https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-march-11-2014-chanpreet-khurana-when-politics-gets-social
<b>In the run-up to the general election, social media companies explain how the political campaigns this time are very different from what they were five years ago. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Chanpreet Khurana was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/FhyPs4evRTV3HtgVIN1ZMK/When-politics-gets-social.html">published in Livemint </a>on March 11, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Okay, I didn’t gain anything. I lost,” Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Arvind%20Kejriwal">Arvind Kejriwal </a></span>conceded disarmingly during a town hall meeting on Facebook last week. He was responding to a question from Candidates 2014 host <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Madhu%20Trehan">Madhu Trehan </a></span>on his much critiqued <i>dharna </i>(sit-in protest) during his 49-day chief ministership of Delhi.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even as elections to 543 constituencies approach, political parties and politicians are putting their online campaigns in top gear. Sample some of the activity in just the last week. On Sunday, the Indian National Congress party asked voters to share their thoughts on what to include in the party’s Lok Sabha election manifesto—on Twitter. On 8 March,<span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/%20Narendra%20Modi"> Narendra Modi</a></span>, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, held the second session in his Chai Pe Charcha with NaMo series—this time on women’s empowerment. And All India Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s “Girls are our assets” post on Facebook was liked more than 22,000 times.</p>
<table class="invisible">
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/facebooktalks.png" alt="facebook talks" class="image-inline" title="facebook talks" /></th>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>Recognizing the high level of engagement around politics on social media, companies like Facebook and Google are driving initiatives on this theme in peak election season—polling starts on 7 April. The Facebook Talks Live’s Candidates 2014 series (also broadcast on NDTV), which in its first week featured Kejriwal, Banerjee, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Lalu%20Prasad">Lalu Prasad </a></span>and the Samajwadi Party’s <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Akhilesh%20Yadav">Akhilesh Yadav</a></span>, is one example.</p>
<p>There are many new services being launched online in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Know your candidate</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On 20 April 2011, US President <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Barack%20Obama">Barack Obama </a></span>appeared on Facebook Talks Live, opening the floodgates for a new kind of engagement between political leaders and the electorate. Cut to almost three years later, and the Facebook-led “town hall” meeting has come to India. On 4 March, Candidates 2014 launched with Kejriwal taking questions on issues like women’s safety, reservation for the backward classes and the plight of contractual workers, and detailing his vision for the country. A video of the town hall is available on Facebook and YouTube and has been viewed at least 30,000 times. As part of the format of the town hall, the questions came in equal parts from the live audience, Trehan and from a pool of questions submitted on the Facebook India page.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To the agile leader then, social media can be more than just another pulpit to broadcast views and give a speech from. It’s something <span class="person"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Sunil%20Abraham">Sunil Abraham</a></span>, executive director of The Centre for Internet And Society, a non-profit research organization, can’t stress enough. “Social media provides unmediated access; in that sense it is a tremendously effective tool,” says Bangalore-based Abraham in a phone interview. “The question is, are political parties agile enough to take advantage of it?”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-march-11-2014-chanpreet-khurana-when-politics-gets-social'>https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-march-11-2014-chanpreet-khurana-when-politics-gets-social</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-04-04T07:52:46ZNews ItemGirls just wanna have... a voice
https://cis-india.org/news/telegraphindia-march-8-2014-girls-just-wanna-have-a-voice
<b>Many Indian women have taken to Twitter, the micro-blogging site, to air their views. And some of them have become social media celebrities by virtue of their wise and witty tweets. Prasun Chaudhuri looks at the women who matter in India’s Twitterverse.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140308/jsp/calcutta/story_18064724.jsp">published in the Telegraph</a> on March 8, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Everyone knows that movie stars like Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone, media celebs like Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media who hang on to their every word. But Malini Agarwal, Priyanka Sachar? Vidyut Kale? You may not have heard of them otherwise, but these women are rockstars of India’s Twitterverse too — not because they are famous in their day jobs, but because their tweets have that special something that keeps the followers coming.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Take Malini Agarwal (@MissMalini), a former radio jockey and head of digital content for Channel V in India, who has over 2,00,000 followers on Twitter. In fact, she has a larger-than-life presence on virtually all social media platforms. Agarwal tweets about Bollywood, the fashion world and the Page 3 circuit. Her Twitter bio says: “She who controls the spice, controls the universe. Bollywood, Fashion & Lifestyle with a Desi Girl Twist.” This “desi girl” with the insider’s take on the glamour world is now an industry of sorts. She has her own website called missmalini.com in which she has employed nine enthusiastic young bloggers — “a happy mix of Bollywood Junkies, Fashionistas and Party Animals” representing “the young, modern (and pretty!) face of India”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Far removed from the glamour circuit is Vidyut Kale (@Vidyut), a stay-at-home mom raising an infant with cerebral palsy. She has over 14,000 followers for her unusual takes on “issues of socio-political interest”. Says Kale, who describes herself as an “intellectual anarchist”, “Twitter is just amazing because I can actually comment on something and get instant replies. I think I get followed mainly because I say what many will tiptoe around, and that can feel like a big relief when an issue is bugging you badly.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Her “firebrand” tweeting — on women’s issues, politics, and indeed, pretty much everything under the sun — has turned her into quite a celebrity and she often gets invited to speak at events. Even though she avoids most of these “real-life” gatherings, sometimes her fans force her to attend them. She says, “I have been paid travel expenses to attend an event when I said I couldn’t afford the travel. I have been interviewed, I have had people make an effort to understand a [social] cause if I bring it up.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Clearly, a social media platform like Twitter has become a fantastic forum for women — a section of society that has traditionally been voiceless. Those who shine on it, says Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society (a Bangalore-based organisation that researches the impact of digital media), do so by virtue of their “authentic voice”. He adds, “Unlike in the traditional media, there’s no editor to moderate their views and they don’t have any guidelines to follow.” In other words, what their fans get to read or see are unfiltered views — something that’s often missing in mainstream media. Besides, their tweets are often edgy and politically incorrect. And men — and women — fed on the traditional image of women propagated by the mainstream media, find that refreshing and engaging.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Adds social media enthusiast and avid blogger Harsh Ajmera, “People appreciate the bold and politically incorrect approach of these Twitter stars, as opposed to the sugar-coated comments aired in news channels and various other media outlets.” Agrees Kale, “Unlike in lengthy blog posts or newspaper columns, it is easier to make comments on news or challenge views through Twitter. It also enables direct interaction with readers.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ask Chinmayi Sripada (@chinmayi), a Chennai-based singer whose bold and frank tweets have earned her more than 2,40,000 Twitter followers. And a fair number of trolls and abusive enemies too. When she spoke out in support of Tamil Nadu fishermen who were attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy, she was flooded with abusive tweets that were tantamount to sexual harassment. But she took on her abusers (one of them was a professor at a top fashion institute) head on. “I filed a case under Section 66A of the IT Act and they were in jail for about two weeks. That was when I saw the full extent of cyber bullying on the basis of caste and community.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, Sripada doesn’t owe her fame to Twitter alone. She is a popular playback singer in south India and got famous across India for her recent Bollywood hit in Chennai Express. “I haven’t become famous because of social media. I am recognised primarily as a singer.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Actress and former Miss India Gul Panag (@GulPanag) is yet another Twitter star who was already a celebrity. But with a staggering 7,84,000 followers, and with tweets that are unfailingly sharp and intelligent, maybe her Twitter stardom outshines her Bollywood one. A recent survey by an agency named her as one of the most influential persons on the micro-blogging site. News anchor Barkha Dutt — one of the country’s top media celebrities — also boasts a whopping 12.3 lakh followers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But Kaveri Ahuja (@ikaveri) is a regular wife and mom who has gone on to become a Twitter celeb. A cancer survivor, her takes on everyday life and the stories of her battle against colorectal cancer (“I love a good fight. How else would I have kicked the big C’s butt?”) attract over 25,000 followers. She even runs a separate Twitter handle for her fan club (@ikaverifc). “Being recognised on Twitter has expanded my offline social circle as well. I can count many online friends as my real-life friends now,” she says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of India’s earliest Twitter stars was Priyanka Sachar. If her real name doesn’t ring a bell, her Twitter handle, @TwilightFairy, might. This erstwhile IT professional and part-time wedding photographer left her day job riding on the fame earned by her 140-character tweets. Her quirky takes on a wide range of topics — ranging from everyday outrages (“Bought passionfruit cake for parents’ anniversary from jaypeehotels and got long human hair baked in it for free. Never again!”) to instant reaction to news (“Sahara boss gets ink on his face. Reminds me of school time ink pen wars!”) — are lapped up by her 21,000+ followers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thanks to her fame on Twitter, she is often recognised by strangers. “It is a strange experience and I really don’t know how to react, except to say ‘yes, that’s me, how did you know!’… Twitter has made sure that so many interesting (and seemingly inaccessible) people are accessible instantly.” Apart from these “life-altering changes”, she keeps getting invited to some activity or the other, organised by brands that regularly invite “influencers”. “The recognition on Twitter/social media has affected me in massive ways. I left my IT industry job in order to figure out if I can take up a different profession and be a freelancer. And the moment I left my job, an opportunity landed straight in my lap, simply because of my Twitter id! I got offered a job as a social media consultant at a digital media agency,” she says.<br />So have social media platforms such as Twitter really done wonders for women’s empowerment? Yes and no.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Sachar, Twitter did offer unprecedented freedom of speech in its early days. But now that a lot of politicians and political parties have come on board and the Indian IT laws are being tweaked, tweets can be misused by anyone in power. “Even though one can say what one wants, people do tread a tad more cautiously compared to, let’s say, two year back,” says Sachar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chinmayi agrees. “There is nothing called total freedom of speech. Even if one chooses that path, the trolls are waiting to see who can be cut to size. I am guarded about what I write on social media.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/telegraphindia-march-8-2014-girls-just-wanna-have-a-voice'>https://cis-india.org/news/telegraphindia-march-8-2014-girls-just-wanna-have-a-voice</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-04-01T11:21:47ZNews Item‘Mobile’ voters may sway polls
https://cis-india.org/news/bd-live-avantika-chilkoti-march-5-2014-mobile-voters-may-sway-polls
<b>BABALAL Patel’s tiny tea stall in Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Avantika Chilkoti was<a class="external-link" href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/life/gadgets/2014/03/05/mobile-voters-may-sway-polls"> published in BDlive</a> on March 5, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But one night this month, this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the hi-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with politician Narendra Modi as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Similar "tea parties" were held across India, designed to ram home Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. The nationwide event, organised by using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, signals a shift in Indian politics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of cellphones mean this year’s battle is playing out equally fiercely online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media," says Arvind Gupta, head of information technology and social media for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of North Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election that must be held in the next three months, and of which the outcome many believe will be close.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a "postmodern election" for up to 160 — largely urban — seats out of a total of 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communications for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, exceeded 200-million. While that is a fraction of the 1.3-billion population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies, but for urban constituencies, because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class are very much glued into the election and showing interest," says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4-million Twitter followers and more than 10.6-million "likes" on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">By contrast, Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national "tea parties", but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most important in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in the press. The audience could speak directly to Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"While answering each question, Modi has a point of view," says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grandfather’s tea shop. "He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing — this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media provide swathes of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analysis used by US President Barack Obama’s campaigns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From its offices in suburban Mumbai, digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks social media discussions at constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or "social radar", which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sceptics argue, however, that social media have insufficient traction in India to affect results of the coming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. Educated, influential Indians use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites," says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. "It’s an indirect route to the vote."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, an adviser to the Obama campaign warns that, given differences in funding and the environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year, a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the cellphone.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff," says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. "But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model.… No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s version is markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I have never attended a political rally in my entire life," says Patel, who helped to organise Modi’s nationwide "tea party". "If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via e-mail."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/bd-live-avantika-chilkoti-march-5-2014-mobile-voters-may-sway-polls'>https://cis-india.org/news/bd-live-avantika-chilkoti-march-5-2014-mobile-voters-may-sway-polls</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-03-05T11:55:24ZNews ItemIndia’s ballot battle will also run through Facebook
https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-zia-haq-march-4-2014-india-s-ballot-battle-will-also-run-through-facebook
<b>Facebook on Tuesday launched its widely awaited “election tracker” for the upcoming general elections, a move that signals the growing importance of social media as a political tool in a rapidly urbanizing India.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Zia Haq was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/socialmedia-updates/india-s-ballot-battle-will-also-run-through-facebook/article1-1190947.aspx">published in the Hindustan Times</a> on March 4, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s 2014 ballot battle will run through the social-media world, which could likely influence electoral outcomes by swinging 3-4% votes, as more and more young Indians go online to make sense of politics, according to two new surveys.<br /> <br />In these mostly urbanising seats, social-media usage is now “sufficiently widespread” to influence politics, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). An offline study conducted by market research firm TNS and Google India suggested similar shifts.<br /> <br />The Facebook tracker (<a href="http://on.fb.me/1g6ZJ3k">http://on.fb.me/1g6ZJ3k</a>) will help India’s 93 million Facebook users to see which parties and candidates as well as issues are trending.<br /> <br />Social-media platforms are likely to be influential in 160 of India’s 543 Parliament constituencies, making Facebook and Twitter users the nation’s newest voting bloc, according to the IAMAI survey.<br /> <br />These are constituencies where 10% of the voting population uses social media sites such as Facebook, or where the number of social media users is higher than the winning candidate’s margin of victory at the last election.<br /> <br />Research shows that social media is more persuasive than television ads. Nearly 100 million Indians, or more than Germany’s population, use the Internet each day. Of this, 40 million have assured broadband, the ones most likely to have at least one social media account.<br /> <br />“Unlike Obama who used social media directly for votes, Indian politicians have tended to use it more to mould public discourse,” says Sunil Abraham, the CEO of The Centre for Internet and Society.<br /> <br />“I think these trends are over-hyped and the impact, if any, would only be marginal,” said Communist Party of India MP, Gurudas Dasgupta, who created a Facebook account only last month.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-zia-haq-march-4-2014-india-s-ballot-battle-will-also-run-through-facebook'>https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-zia-haq-march-4-2014-india-s-ballot-battle-will-also-run-through-facebook</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-03-05T11:49:29ZNews ItemIndia ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology
https://cis-india.org/news/financial-times-february-26-2014-india-tea-parties-enable-politicians-to-woo-urban-youth-with-technology
<b>Babalal Patel’s tiny tea stall in southern Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Avantika Chilkoti was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e8381500-9784-11e3-809f-00144feab7de.html#slide1">published in the Financial Times</a> on February 26, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But one night this month this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the high-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bharatiya Janata party, as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Similar “tea parties” were held across the country, designed to ram home Mr Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. But the nationwide event, organised using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, also signals a shift in Indian politics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of mobile phones mean the 2014 battle is playing out equally fiercely online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media,” says Arvind Gupta, head of IT and social media for the BJP. “Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of northern Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election, which must be held in the next three months, and which many believe will be close.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a “postmodern election” for up to 160 - largely urban - seats of the total 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communication for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, passing 200m. While that is a fraction of the 1.3bn population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time this year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies but for urban constituencies because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class is very much glued into the election and showing interest,” says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4m Twitter followers and more than 10.6m “likes” on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs. Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national “tea parties”, but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most importantly in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in local media. The audience could speak directly to Mr Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“While answering each question Mr Modi has a point of view,” says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grand- father’s tea shop. “He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing - this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media also provides swaths of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analytics used by US president Barack Obama’s campaigns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From its offices in suburban Mumbai, the digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks what social media users are discussing at the constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or “social radar”, which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.<br />Sceptics argue, however, that social media has insufficient traction in India to affect results of the forthcoming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. It is educated influential Indians who use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. “It’s an indirect route to the vote.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An adviser to the Obama campaign warns, however, that, given differences in funding and the local environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the mobile phone.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff,” says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. “But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model . . . No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s version is, of course, markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai-wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I have never attended a political rally in my entire life,” says Mr Patel, who helped organise Mr Modi’s nationwide “tea party”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via email.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Modi’s digital army</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The team building the digital campaign for India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata party mixes entrepreneurs and veterans from the technology industry, rather than individuals with experience of electioneering alone.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rajesh Jain, working on electoral technology, is well known in the industry since setting up successful businesses in online news and digital marketing. These include IndiaWorld Communications, a collection of websites which was bought in 1999 by Satyam Infoway, then India’s largest internet service provider.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He has the archetypal curriculum vitae, with a degree from one of the eminent Indian institutes of technology followed by a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Arvind Gupta, who heads the BJP’s IT and social media cell, has a remarkably similar educational background - with an added stint in Silicon Valley to his name.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the last count, the party had recruited more than 2m volunteers, who are organised online and will provide support in different ways. But there is also a younger generation of advocates who have given up good jobs to join the digital effort. Citizens for Accountable Governance is a non-profit youth organisation co-ordinating nationwide “tea parties” ahead of this year’s national election, where Narendra Modi, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, interacts with audiences at tea stalls via video link.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">About 100 young professionals lead the operation and all come with impressive credentials, including jobs at prominent global consulting groups such as McKinsey, and banks such as JPMorgan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Beyond that, Mr Modi has had a team working for him personally since he took over as chief minister of Gujarat more than a decade ago.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is a discreet IT set-up that still functions independently of the party’s operations.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/financial-times-february-26-2014-india-tea-parties-enable-politicians-to-woo-urban-youth-with-technology'>https://cis-india.org/news/financial-times-february-26-2014-india-tea-parties-enable-politicians-to-woo-urban-youth-with-technology</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-03-06T12:13:36ZNews ItemWill You be Paid to Post a Picture?
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-february-18-2014-nishant-shah-will-you-be-paid-to-post-a-picture
<b>The wave of free information production on the web is on the wane.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/will-you-be-paid-to-post-a-picture/99/">published in the Indian Express</a> on February 18, 2014</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The age of volunteerism is officially over. The last decade of the mass adoption of the internet has been fuelled by endless human hours being spent in producing information which is the new currency of our times. The big transition to Web 2.0 began when the individual “user” became more than either an individual or the user. The individual found herself as a part of a collective, finding a voice and a community of others to belong to. Simultaneously, instead of being a passive consumer of the web, the user started producing data — blogs, videos, tweets, content management systems, online discussion boards, massively multiple online role-playing platforms, social network transactions — all of which became a part of the new Web’s widespread popularity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Almost everything that we understand as the social web today is contingent upon people producing data in their interactions with the world around them. From knowledge producing websites like Wikipedia to entertainment platforms like YouTube, visualisation and data gathering spaces like Pinterest to photographs of self, food and cute animals on Instagram, political and social commentaries on Tumblr to Listicles and memes on Buzzfeed, the internet is a veritable smorgasbord of new information forms, formats and functions that are generated by the users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What is possibly the most exciting about this burgeoning information universe has been the amount of free labour that goes into it, and often remains invisible. As digital labour scholar Trebor Schulz points out, the internet has become both a factory and a playground, where our leisure time is capitalised into producing work that sustains the new attention and information economies. For instance, the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook, does not produce any of its contents. It is, in fact, a system of information mining and sorting, which works as long as a growing user base continues to produce information on it. Tomorrow, if all of us stop producing Facebook, and only lurk on it, the platform will collapse. Which is why, Facebook continues to acquire new platforms and applications to be integrated into its universe.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Similarly, the real effort that goes into the sustenance of sites like Wikipedia, which has become the de facto reference for global knowledge systems, is carried out by unsung and invisible editors who patiently, meticulously, and without almost any expectation, continue to add, verify, strengthen and curate reliable information that we can use. When the non-profit organisation WikiMedia Foundation prides itself in running one of the least expensive websites in the top 10 most visited sites in the world, it is signalling its deep appreciation for the countless human hours that have made Wikipedia possible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But, in recent years, there is noticeable stagnation in the wave of free information production on the Web. Oh, don’t get me wrong. We are producing an unprecedented amount of data — we are constantly being watched by surveillance technologies that detect biometric and genetic make-up of all our transactions, or we are inviting people to watch us on social network sites where we reveal some of our deepest secrets and desires, or we are watching ourselves, quantifying everything from things we ate to the number of hours we sleep. And yet, as we live in a world of Big Data, there is a definite decrease in people contributing to production of free information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the digital natives move from the web to mobile phones, traditional websites are already facing a crisis. News and media agencies that have celebrated the global citizen media networks have started realising that the individual user is more interested in local networks and information ecologies which are independent of mainstream conglomerates. And people are realising that their time and effort is worth money. They can be easily compensated for their online activities and gain reputation and importance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The tension only becomes more palpable when people start realising that there are others who are being paid to work on the platforms that they are contributing to. We all knew that this model of depending on free information was not a sustainable one. But it seems the day has arrived, especially with the recent drives on Wikipedia to build specialised knowledge editors. In the last few months, we have seen people in the FemTechNet project — an academic activist feminist project that seeks to remind us of the intersections of feminism and technology in network societies — carry out “Wikistorming”, where students are adding pages of women’s contribution to technologies on Wikipedia. More recently, medicine students at University of Chicago have taken to correcting and adding accurate information to Wikipedia, which is often a source of health information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Both of these are fantastic efforts to add to the platform that was the underdog that overthrew the mammoth encyclopaedia like The Encyclopaedia Britannica. We hope more specialised users in different locations, fields, disciplines and languages continue to edit and contribute to Wikipedia. However, it is also a signal that the generalist information producer is on the decline. We are transitioning into a new age, where people are going to need rewards, incentives and benefits for performing information transactions on the web. The user is no longer going to be available for free labour, and it is time we started thinking of “paid usership”.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-february-18-2014-nishant-shah-will-you-be-paid-to-post-a-picture'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-february-18-2014-nishant-shah-will-you-be-paid-to-post-a-picture</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-03-06T11:58:41ZBlog EntryThe Dangers Of Birdsong
https://cis-india.org/news/outlook-namrata-joshi-january-25-2014-dangers-of-birdsong
<b>Instant gratification? Social media can quickly turn the game into checkmate if you don’t keep your emotions in check. </b>
<p>Namrata Joshi's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?289264">published in Outlook</a> on January 25, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Woke up from a dream in which I had just learned that I was going to keep wickets for India. In my dream, I thought, let me share this news on Twitter. I didn’t, fearing I would be made a laughing stock.” These are few of a series of stream of consciousness tweets about a dream posted this Monday by author-academician Amitava Kumar. Tweets that don’t just have to do with dreaming of a personal achievement, but also about tweeting it. “Twitter has invaded even our sleeping life,” says Amitava on an e-mail but also admits that he didn’t think for a moment that he was sharing something private in a public place while tweeting his reverie. “Instead, perhaps, I was seeking a private connection with a lot of readers.” Which he did rustle up in good measure. He followed it up by tweeting a picture of his son with him, taken by his 10-year-old daughter Ila, as a homage to a similar photostream by author- photographer-art historian Teju Cole.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Amitava’s unfussy and creative candidness about tweeting things personal, which he prefers to see as “grappling with a form of writing” came in the wake of a weekend of vigorous debate on how social media platforms were bringing the private under unblinking public scrutiny—the immediate hook being the sudden, tragic death of Sunanda Pushkar after her no-holds-barred Twitter war with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar (over the latter’s alleged liaison with her husband Shashi Tharoor, which was consumed with much amusement by their vicarious, at times vicious, followers). The Tharoor incident is not a stand-alone case. Be it a confidentiality clause or diplomatic tact, a professional decision or personal affair or even a death of someone close to you, social media has become a stage to play out the classified and the confidential (see infographic) by the celebrities and the aam aadmi alike. The payback? Spats, comebacks, breakdowns, meltdowns, resignations, embarrassments, humiliations, kerfuffles....</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And it’s not something confined to India alone. “US Congressman Anthony Weiner’s tweet of his, let’s call it, torso, to a young woman in Seattle is perhaps the most egregious example of a US politician behaving badly online,” says Amitava. No surprise then that Weiner became a butt of late-night comedy shows.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But the larger question here is why. Why this urge and urgency to share it all? What is it about a platform like Twitter or Facebook that makes people bare and dare? Is it that the immediacy, speed and reach allows them the easiest way to extend the boundaries of their secluded, lonely lives, get instant attention and fan the curiosity of someone out there who they don’t even know? And why is propriety and moderation getting thrown out of the window in the world of virtual exchanges? Adman-columnist Santosh Desai calls Twitter a “broadcast system to the universe”. The tweets are often “thought bubbles”, “something you mutter” without a full sense of what public means. “The spur of the moment opinion or feeling acquires public currency,” he says. “The unraveling of the human being, the opening up of the closed box then becomes a new source of stimulation and pleasure,” he says. “I sometimes wonder how we shared before Twitter. We talk about what we like, don’t like at the drop of a hat. At times you are vulnerable and vent things out without an agenda and without knowing the repercussions. We creative bunch are like that,” says popular actress Divya Dutta.</p>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/ShashiTharoor1.png" alt="Shashi" class="image-inline" title="Shashi" /></th>
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<td><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/ShashiTharoor2.png" alt="Shashi Tharoor 2" class="image-inline" title="Shashi Tharoor 2" /></td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, private information is a currency in the global attention economy. “One of the many ways of climbing the attention economy is to divulge private information. Those in public life like filmstars and socialites understand this completely and exploit all traditional broadcast channels and contemporary multicast channels like social media to amass public attention,” he says. Look closely and the online space is no different from the real. There are as many exceptions as there are rules. So for every exhibitionist handle that exploits our latent voyeurism, there is a Natasha Badhwar, one of the most life-affirming presences on Twitter. For her, like Amitava, sharing is a mode of expression. “Sharing gives us agency. We take back the power to tell our story, express our views, share our version in our own words,” she says. According to her, “honest” sharing fuels empathy. “It is contagious, it makes the reader want to share too,” she says. And from that sharing could emerge a new pool of acquaintances, friends and well-wishers. It may not be a virtual escape from the real but a journey and connect back to the actual, an expansion of the human circle than a depletion of it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But not all our friends and followers need necessarily be sympathetic. Often they are also brutally savage. “The anonymity allows people to say exactly what they want without considering the implications. They don’t realise that it’s not just a handle but a human being they are talking to,” says Nikhil Pahwa, founder of medianama.com. Amitava compares it to drone warfare. “The technology of remote destruction has introduced a new experience of war, and a new logic of killing. You can kill with greater abandon; you can strike in unexpected places; you are confronted with few consequences of your fatal mistakes. Similarly, Twitter allows a mode of social exchange with less culpability. There are very few consequences for trolls, but disastrous ones for their victims,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But surely that doesn’t mean that you blur all the lines between the private and the public? How to exercise caution? How much to open up (or not) and how much of your core to keep to yourself? Life, after all, is too complex and fragile for blame games and finger-pointing at social media alone. It’s those using it who need to own up. “People need to take responsibility for what they say. It’s like someone telling me how he was abused for 15 minutes on the phone when he could have easily cut the call,” says Nikhil Pahwa. “It’s a modern form of communication which you have to embrace but there’s a line you must draw. For instance, my wife and I never interact on FB or Twitter. I keep the family to myself. Jokes are fine but I don’t abuse or use swear words,” says actor Ashwin Mushran. “There has to be a sense of decorum. I won’t put out what I gossip about with my friends. I have no strategy but am guarded by my own belief system,” says actor Rajat Kapoor.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It’s normal human nature to express. Be it anger or frustration, as a counsellor I tell people to not suppress emotions but some moderation and etiquette need to apply in cyber space,” says Mukta Puntambekar deputy director of Pune-based Muktangan Rehabilitation Centre. “You have to accept that your followers and friends will have access to details about you. You have to exercise discretion in saving something of yourself for yourself. There are areas that need not be opened up for all,” says actor-comedian Vir Das, who recently posted an open letter on FB—‘Twitter Bad? Facebook Evil? or We Stupid?’—on the pointlessness of blaming social media for the Tharoor family tragedy. To extend the argument further, and add another layer to it, aren’t we also living in times when privacy itself is evolving, asks Rajesh Lalwani, CEO of blogworks and a self-confessed people-watcher. “My grandmother would not even eat in public. But we eat in restaurants, on the streets,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy is also becoming an ambiguous, vague and complex entity. Getting tagged in a friend’s photo compromises your privacy without your involvement or participation. “The line between private and public has mostly dissolved because of the temporal persistence of digital traces in cyberspace, the global nature of the network and the ubiquitous and pervasive surveillance state,” says Abraham. “On Twitter and FB, things get circulated...what we put up, whether it’s a tweet, an update or a picture, is permanent unlike memory,” says Desai. The digital trail stays online. “We are leaving our digital footprints behind. What we post might be easy but the implications of it are complicated,” says writer, filmmaker and media observer Amit Khanna.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to him, there is a gap between the progression of technology and society. “There are newer windows but our minds are not growing apace to handle the connected world in a mature way,” he says. So one needs to be additionally circumspect about what we do online, how much of us we put out there. The ‘creative minds’ don’t see it as cut and dried. Natasha thinks that sharing can make people vulnerable to ridicule. “Confronting and embracing that vulnerability is the only way forward. These are not real fears to cling to, these are fears to shed as we grow and realise the extent of our individual power.” Amitava says he has seen several careers destroyed because of a single tweet. But he’d hate to back down and be cautious. As he puts it, “You’ve got to push the envelope and experiment with expression. I hope that when my wrong moment comes, people will be forgiving.” Amen to that.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/outlook-namrata-joshi-january-25-2014-dangers-of-birdsong'>https://cis-india.org/news/outlook-namrata-joshi-january-25-2014-dangers-of-birdsong</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-02-12T10:29:10ZNews Item