Citizen vs citizen

 CONTEXT:

1. The Union Home Ministry has launched a new programme that invites citizen volunteers to police online content. 

ABOUT:

1. An MHA circular on the scheme, which will be piloted in Jammu and Kashmir and Tripura, asks volunteers to flag and report child sexual abuse, rape, terrorism, “radicalisation” and “anti-national” activities.
2. To begin with, the existing legal framework does not define what constitutes “anti-national” activity. It is imprecise and arbitrary and there’s a formidable body of evidence to show how this has been weaponised. 

 

SHORTCOMINGS:

1. Licensing ordinary people, without any locus standi, to decide what qualifies for that label is an invitation, even exhortation, to misuse and harassment.
2. No statutory backing exists for such a volunteer force, nor is it clear what need it might serve. Even if the ministry’s stated mission is to counter cyber-crime, it cannot outsource a fundamental state responsibility to a rag-tag corps of volunteers, who will wield disproportionate power to scrutinise fellow citizens on social media without any accountability whatsoever.
3. Making citizens vulnerable to such unofficial surveillance and scrutiny is a violation of their fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression and privacy.
4. By turning citizen against citizen, it risks deepening polarisation and mistrust in society.
5. It also ignores the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, when it comes to criminalising online speech. The court, while striking down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, had ruled that a distinction must be made between speech that is simply “offensive or annoying” and that which is guilty of inciting a disruption of public order, or violence.

 

Constitutional provision over social media posts.

1. Article 19(1)(a): Freedom of speech and expression, provides every citizen with the right to express one’s views, opinions, beliefs, and convictions freely by word of mouth, writing, printing, picturing or in any other manner.
2. Article 19(2) confers the right on the State to impose reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the freedom of speech and expression on the grounds of, 

a. Sovereignty and integrity of India,

b. Security of the state,

c. Friendly relations with foreign states,

d. Public order, decency or morality,

e. Contempt of court, defamation, and incitement to an offence.

 

ENCROACH FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

1. The programme is just one more example of the anxiety over social media narratives that is pushing governments to encroach steadily on free speech.
2. From Bihar’s recent blanket gag on online criticism of the state government to Uttarakhand police’s decision to scan social media for “anti-national” posts to the now rescinded Kerala government ordinance that would have made “defamatory” social media posts punishable by a prison term, the internet appears to trigger the political class’s Big Brother reflex with disturbing frequency.
3. It is true that nearly all high-stakes political contests today are being waged on the internet, from farmers’ protest to electoral battles.
4. Social media is both an avenue of mobilisation as well as prone to capture by purveyors of propaganda and hate. But for the Union home ministry to midwife a proxy force to police ordinary citizens on the internet, to give the weaponisation of social media the imprimatur of government authority, is disquieting.

 

IMPORTANCE OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION:

1. A basic element of a functional democracy is to allow all citizens to participate in the political and social processes of the country. There is ample freedom of speech, thought and expression in all forms (verbal, written, broadcast, etc.) in a healthy democracy.
2. Freedom of speech is guaranteed not only by the Indian Constitution but also by international statutes such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (declared on 10th December 1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, etc.
3. This is important because democracy works well only if the people have the right to express their opinions about the government and criticise it if needed.
4. The voice of the people must be heard and their grievances are satisfied.
5. Not just in the political sphere, even in other spheres like social, cultural and economic, the people must have their voices heard in a true democracy.
6. In the absence of the above freedoms, democracy is threatened. The government will become all-too-powerful and start serving the interests of a few rather than the general public.
7. Heavy clampdown on the right to free speech and free press will create a fear-factor under which people would endure tyranny silently. In such a scenario, people would feel stifled and would rather suffer than express their opinions.
8. Freedom of the press is also an important factor in the freedom of speech and expression.

 

CONCLUSION:

1. In times when an army of vigilantes entitled to their right to be offended grows in strength and when the overzealous state slaps sedition charges against journalists and students, such a move will only go on to normalise the suspicion and persecution of citizens exercising their right to disagree, dissent or even annoy others.
2. Without basis in law, undemocratic in spirit, this reckless initiative must be withdrawn immediately.
3. Free speech is not a favour that the state doles out to the people. It is democracy's touchstone.
4. Talking back to the powerful is a way for the disenfranchised to claim power, or to contest a consensus that leaves them out.
5. The anxiety about improper speech evident today belies a reluctance of those in power to be held accountable.