ELECTION COMMISION OF INDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA

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Social media has now become an inevitable part of the political discourse in India. The entire national, as well as regional, political parties and leaders have established a social media presence and significant follower base.
For the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission has issued a demarche to political parties on the use of social media for campaigning.
The polling body said it will closely monitor any content that is aimed at vitiating conduct of elections or has the potential to disturb social harmony.
In fact, this is the first time that social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Google have confirmed their willingness to work with the EC to uphold the integrity of political campaigns on their respective platforms.
The demarche included the following postulates:
1. The EC has broadly identified five types of social media platforms –
a) Collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia)
b) Blogs and micro-blogs (e.g. Twitter)
c) Content communities (e.g. YouTube)
d) Social networking sites (e.g. Facebook)
e) Virtual game-worlds (e.g. Apps)
The rules which apply to campaigning on other forms of media – Model Code of Conduct – shall now also apply to social media.
2.  The EC has asked candidates to furnish information such as verified social media accounts at the time of filing nominations.
3. National, as well as regional political parties and leaders, can no longer release political advertisements on social media without pre-certification from monitoring committees.
4. Candidates and political parties now have to furnish expenditure on election advertisements on social media. This expenditure includes payments made to PR agencies, digital content agencies as well as staff hired to maintain an individual’s/party’s social media account. The cap to total expenditure, of which the aforementioned spends on social media, is now a part is Rs 70 lakh per candidate.
5. Political parties are also expected to adhere to the 48-hour ‘silence period’ online as well. Considering that it is online, this would warrant pulling down existing ads from social media.
6. The EC, through the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee, will work with social media companies to flag objectionable content to grievance officers who will then pull them down within specific time duration.
Political parties cannot make personal attacks at each other’s candidates. However, they are allowed to criticize based on policies and past records. Any posts laced with caste or communal undertones will not be tolerated.


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