Election Commission calls country heads of social-media platforms for meeting over fake news ahead of Lok Sabha poll 

New Delhi: The Election Commission has asked the country heads of six social-media platforms for a meeting, which includes representatives of Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Google, ShareChat and TikTok, on Tuesday, to fight fake news before the national election that begin next month.

The meeting has a six-point agenda that includes “evolving mechanism by social media to prevent abuse on their platforms” and pre-certification of all political advertisement on the social sites by the Media Certification & Monitoring Committee of the Election Commission.

Since social media has become a hotbed for circulation of fake political news, the EC wants social-media platforms to voluntary undertake information education and communication efforts for their users about “unlawful conduct during election and in particular during prohibited period of 48 hours,” for tech firms to avoid intense scrutiny ahead of polls.

These platforms have introduced various programmes such as online fact checkers to policies boosting transparency in order to avoid misinformation.

Recently, Facebook told the Bombay high court that it was voluntarily launching tools and new plans to increase advertisement transparency and authentication requirements for advertisers in political advertising. Google also said it supported “responsible political advertising” and expected all political advertisements and destinations to “comply with local campaign and election laws” for any areas they target.

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