Over the years, the increasing instances of misuse of social media have brought new challenges for law enforcement agencies. A local YouTuber who was not named was summoned by the Meghalaya Police on July 4 for allegedly disseminating ‘news-like’ sensitive information using his social media platforms and was tutored on how to disseminate information of public interest responsibly. According to police, the individual has been disseminating information in the form of news through YouTube without following due and proper procedure as per norms to function as a media outlet.
Police also said that the YouTuber was also asked to abstain from using images and other sensitive information to push his viewership without verification from the concerned authorities. The individual was educated on the nuances of engaging oneself in the information disseminating field, especially with regards to proper procedure of getting officially acknowledged by relevant authorities, following certain protocols and procedures and maintaining a strict code of ethics. Perhaps, the individual who was summoned failed to differentiate between social media and mainstream media and crossed the line.
According to police, there are a large number of individuals in Meghalaya who come up with news outlets using YouTube, Facebook, Instagram platforms without following any registration process or having legal sanctity. These outlets do not have any official source of verifying information and are susceptible to hearsay and speculative reporting. There are also cases where social media users used this platform to incite hate, tarnish the reputation of an individual or spread fake news. It is high time that responsible social media use must be taught at every school and college and especially in the rural areas where people can be easily manipulated.
Coming back to the statement by Meghalaya police that the YouTuber has been disseminating information in the form of news through YouTube, it is a fact that social media is trying to take the place of the mainstream media as far as reporting events not only in Meghalaya but also all over the world. The trend of people taking the role as “citizen” journalists is both good and bad. We have to understand that traditional media has been around for hundreds of years and social media is a new phenomenon. It can never become a newsmaker, and if we are allowing that to happen, it is a mistake.
Real journalism is about nurturing sources, verifying facts and making sure the story is correct. But this process is unfortunately being whittled away little by little even with many of the best journalists these days because of the need and pressure to be first rather than correct. Social media and the internet are still new phenomena in India, something that even today’s college-goers have seen evolving before their eyes. It is high-time that media persons and the entire fraternity re-evaluate traditional media’s interaction with social media.
No doubt, there are quite a few positives of social media as well. Social media offers a unique opportunity to governments to engage with their stakeholders especially citizens in real time to make policy making citizen centric. Many governments across the world as well many government agencies in India are using various social media platforms to reach out to citizens, businesses and experts to seek inputs into policy making, get feedback on service delivery, create community based programmes etc.
