India / If social media is used to spread fake news, action will be taken: RS Prasad

New Delhi: Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said that the government respects social media for empowering common people but action will be taken if it is misused to spread fake news and violence.

"We respect social media a lot, it has empowered common people. Social media has a big role in the Digital India program. However, if social media is misused to spread fake news, violence then action will be taken," said Prasad while addressing the Rajya Sabha.

In response to the ''legal requests'' from the Central government, Twitter on Wednesday informed that it has taken multiple enforcement actions - including permanent suspension of over 500 accounts for clear violations of Twitter's rules.

However, the Central government has also conveyed to Twitter officials that the manner in which the social media giant officially allows fake, unverified, and automated bot accounts to be operated on its platform, raises doubts about its commitment to transparency and healthy conversation on the platform.

A meeting between the Secretary of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Twitter officials took place in view of the order issued by the Centre directing Twitter to remove tweets and accounts using hashtag related to "farmer genocide" and accounts supported by Khalistan sympathisers and backed by Pakistan and blog post issued by Twitter.

This came after some of the protesting farmers did not follow the prearranged route on Republic Day for their tractor rally and broke barricades to enter Delhi. They also clashed with police and vandalised property in several parts of the national capital.

Farmers have been protesting at the different borders of the national capital since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws: Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.