Social media
can be effectively manipulated to create a sense of panic among citizens on
communal lines, since rumors spread virally leaving little time for Governments
to clamp down on such communications.
Nation states’
which lack effective cyber enforcement and harbor radical elements enable
members of these group to post distorted information on social networks and
websites, without the fear of law. Such posts are intended to create conflict
and communal strife in their own and other countries.
In India, the
recent communal clashes between two communities in the North Eastern State of
Assam, gave an opportunity for radicals within other countries to post morphed
images of the supposed violence on social networks while instigating local
sleeper cells to send SMSes designed to trigger panic among people of North
Eastern origin working in large Indian cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and
Pune. This resulted in mass panic and triggered an overnight exodus of over 50,000
people from these cities, forcing the Government to take the extreme step of
banning bulk SMSEs for a fortnight, in an effort to curb the panic.
There are
four lessons to be learned from this incident.
The first is
the obvious efficacy of such mass cyber hate campaigns and their ability to
fuel ideological cyber wars which affects the safety and security of citizens
directly. In the recent past, most of the state sponsored cyber war related
activities were for espionage or to take down industrial units.
Secondly, it
exposed the hurdles in speedily taking down hate posts and tweets through
popular sites like Twitter, and Facebook, in the viral phase of such
campaigns. Steps involved identifying
hate sites, reviewing them, finding consensus on blocking these sites and later
trying to get social networks outside of India’s jurisdiction to remove them
without court orders. India, is now
formulating an incident response mechanism to counter future hate campaigns.
Thirdly,
India realized that it did not have the ability to block hate posts on a state
or regional basis. This ability would be useful in putting out local conflicts.
India currently has the ability to block
URL’s at a national level and not at state level. Trying to build networks capable of regional
blocking requires reallocation of the ip schemes based on individual states,
and large investments in filtering technology.
Fourthly,
there is the need for a neutral international agency which solicits an
appropriate response from nations that are not keen on or unable to act against
hate actors operating from their soil, based on international treaties or
agreements.
Balancing the
need for a secure cyber space, while respecting the privacy and individual
freedom of cyber citizens and ensuring that the Internet remains open for
innovation are increasingly stressed in such situations. To prevent Governments from being forced to
enact regulations that prevent free use of the Internet, future collaborative
working between social networks and Governments is vital, as what they do or do
not do has an impact on people lives and safety.
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