Election 2019 : Social media has used a tool to last time. But this is a time it’s become a weapon.
March 12, 2019
The 2019 Indian general election is scheduled to be held in 7 phases from 11 April 2019 to 19 May 2019 to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha, electing members of parliament for all 543 parliamentary constituencies.
The counting of votes will be conducted on 23 May 2019 and on the same day the results will be declared.
In India's Westminster-style model, parties field candidates for seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. There are 543 seats at stake.
An additional two seats are filled by nominees from the Anglo Indian community -- or those of mixed Indian and European descent. Framed to protect the rights of Anglo Indians when British colonial rule ended, the rule gives the President the power to nominate two members of the community if he/she feels they aren't adequately represented in the legislature.
Whichever party wins the majority of seats gets to choose the prime minister.
Social media has used a tool to last time. But this is a time it’s become a weapon.
Social media has used a tool to last time. But this is a time it’s become a weapon.
Around 900 million Indian are eligible to vote in the election. Who completed aged 18 and can participate. In the last general election, in 2014 more than 815 million were eligible. The average election turnout over all nine phases was around 66.38%, the highest ever in the history of Indian general elections.
The scope for social media to be abused to manipulate voters has never been greater.
Social media has faced increasing scrutiny over its role in elections ever since the 2016 US campaign, with Facebook, in particular, facing controversies like Russian accounts using their platform to sway voters and data from millions of users being shared with research firm Cambridge Analytica.
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| Thanks @CNN |
Facebook and Twitter have taken several steps to make sure their platforms are not abused.
WhatsApp is using artificial intelligence to detect and ban accounts that spread "problematic content," while Facebook is labelling political advertisements and partnering with Indian fact-checkers. Twitter has announced similar initiatives to crack down on "bad-faith actors," and is also working with political parties and election authorities to ensure its platform isn't compromised during the polls.
WhatsApp responded to last year's lynchings with several measures that it hopes will help during the election as well — labels on forwarded messages and an awareness campaign on radio, TV and newspapers.
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| Thanks to @Statista |
The messaging platform also limited to five the number of chats a single message can be forwarded to. But each WhatsApp group can have up to 256 people, meaning a message can still reach 1,280 people at the touch of a button.
"The velocity that misinformation gets once something is out there and it is something which captures people's imagination, then it is shared like crazy," said Sinha. "And it's that velocity that one needs to arrest so that the least amount of people are affected."
In many ways, the election will serve as a litmus test for how India's internet — second only to China's in size — will grow and progress in the future. The rapid boom in user numbers poses an ever greater challenge to the government and tech companies to keep them safe.
"The fact that all of this happening so quickly in India means that giant mistakes will be made and people will end up being misinformed in a mass way," said Agrawal.
Thanks and Resource: @cnn
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