Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud cautions against ‘rise’ of disinformation on Internet
New Delhi, December 1
As social media activism gained currency in India and other parts of the world, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Friday cautioned against ‘disastrous effects’ of using privately-owned platforms for activism and expressing dissent.
Delivering the 14th VM Tarkunde Memorial Lecture here on ‘Upholding Civil Liberties in the Digital Age: Privacy, Surveillance and Free Speech’, the CJI said, “It has been widely reported and recognised by the UN that social media was used as a tool for ethnic cleansing in Myanmar by the military and members of civil society.”
Justice Chandrachud said, “There is a flip side to adopting privately owned platforms as the medium for dissent, activism, and expression of free speech. With corporations wielding such immense power, there is an immense amount of trust placed on them to act as the arbiters of acceptable and unacceptable speech – a role that was earlier played by the state itself. This can have disastrous effects.”
He said, “Unlike state actors who are held accountable by the Constitution and the electorate, social media platforms are relatively unregulated. This is another novel challenge that digital liberties activists have to find unique solutions to.”
He noted that “digital rights activism is intertwined with private platforms in an unprecedented way”. He also warned against the “unprecedented proliferation of disinformation and hate speech on the internet” that offered a serious challenge to the traditional ways of understanding free speech in a democracy.
