The bill, which is likely to replace the previous cable TV regulations, proposes to categorise digital content creators, such as Dhruv Rathee, Ravish Kumar, and BeerBiceps, as “digital news broadcasters”. This could mean a set of new regulations and codes of conduct for content creators across platforms and mediums, from text to videos. 

The bill’s vagueness, with the phrase “as may be prescribed” appearing 42 times, and the manner of floating it has also raised concerns. While the first draft was published for public consultation and feedback, this draft has only been shared with select broadcasters and associations.

This article originally appeared on News Laundry

This research highlights the sensitivity of AI models to their training data and the potential risks of incorporating AI-generated material into their datasets. It also emphasizes the growing need for high-quality human-generated content, which is becoming scarcer and therefore more valuable, potentially stalling advancements in generative AI.

Zakhar Shumaylov, an AI researcher at the University of Cambridge and co-author of the study, underscores the importance of carefully curating training data. He warns that failure to do so will lead to inevitable problems.

In the study, Shumaylov’s team used a pre-trained large language model (LLM) and trained it with a dataset from HuggingFace that included Wikipedia entries. They then iterated the model’s output through multiple cycles, feeding each result back into the training set. The outcomes were striking: an initial query about buildings in Somerset, England, produced relatively normal responses. However, by the ninth iteration, the output devolved into incoherent text about jackrabbit tails.

The mechanism behind model collapse is straightforward. AI systems rely solely on their training data; high-quality and diverse data lead to better-performing models, while repetitive AI-generated content limits diversity. This process causes the model to amplify its own mistakes, lose certain terms, and eventually break down.

This issue isn’t new. AI researcher Jathan Sadowski previously described a similar phenomenon as “Habsburg AI,” likening it to the inbreeding of Europe’s Habsburg family, which led to genetic decline. Just as genetic diversity is crucial for humans, diversity in training data is essential for maintaining AI models’ functionality.

The study also raises concerns about the sustainability of web scraping for data collection. As the internet becomes saturated with AI-generated content—from spammy news sites to bizarre AI-created images—web scraping is becoming a less reliable method for gathering training data. The study notes the challenge of distinguishing AI-generated content from human-generated content and questions how to track such data on a large scale.

On a positive note, the study suggests that integrating more original human data can slow down the process of model collapse. Nevertheless, AI models have a significant demand for high-quality and original data. The question remains: can AI companies meet this growing need?

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the channel described in the preceding lines is T-Series. The most-watched and most-subscribed YouTube channel in the world held onto the #1 spot in the Global Top 50 during a week when it accrued 747.4 million weekly views. T-Series surpassed 240 billion lifetime views earlier in December, and it could pass the 250 billion mark as soon as February 2024. That makes it the top record label on YouTube — not just in its home country of India, but across the entire globe.

Another Indian channel captured the #2 spot in the Global Top 50. Anaya Kandhal is a child creator who has captured the hearts of viewers across South Asia. The family-friendly videos on Anaya’s channel cater to the large community of non-English-speaking Indians who find entertainment via platforms like YouTube Shorts. That audience led Anaya Kandhal to 464.6 million weekly views during the third full week of December. Though that was a slight downturn week-over-week, Kandhal held onto the runner-up status she earned a week ago.

The highest-ranking U.S.-based channel in the Global Top 50 is Toys and Colors. During the second half of 2023, the educational hub has become a breakout hit among YouTube’s youngest audience. Its success, aided by its partnership with the media company pocket.watch, has made it a regular entrant in our charts. One week before Christmas, Toys and Colors kept its hot streak alive with a third-place finish in our worldwide chart. It approached 50 million subscribers while picking up 405 million weekly views.

The fourth-place channel in the Global Top 50 also held onto the same chart position it reached last week. ZAMZAM ELECTRONICS TRADING has become the most-watched channel in the Middle East by sharing the daily happenings that occur in and around the titular technology store. The Dubai-based duo in charge of ZAMZAM pushed their YouTube subscriber count above 40 million during a week when they reeled in 393.5 million weekly views.

The fourth country represented in this week’s global top five is Russia. That’s the home of Filaretiki, a family-oriented channel that just achieved its highest chart position of 2023. Filaretiki claimed the #5 spot in the Global Top 50 thanks to the 351.1 million views it picked up during the week that was.

Brothers Vlog now has more than seven billion lifetime YouTube views thanks to the 204.1 million weekly views the channel picked up during the third week of September. That sum, which was 38% higher than Brothers Vlog’s previous seven-day total, pushed the Pakistani channel up to 37th place in the Global Top 50.

By commenting on culture from across South Asia, Brothers Vlog has become a hot commodity on YouTube Shorts. The titular sibs may not have come from much, but at this rate, they’ll be the rich parents before long.

 Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 17 channels in the Top 50.
• United States: 9 channels in the Top 50.
• Pakistan: 5 channels in the Top 50.
• Japan: 4 channels in the Top 50.
• Vietnam: 3 channels in the Top 50.
• Canada, Russia, and South Korea: 2 channels in the Top 50.
• Belgium, El Salvador, France, Hong Kong, Spain, and United Arab Emirates: 1 channel each in the Top 50.

This week, 33 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

Top 50

50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels This Week • Worldwide

December 11, 2023 – December 17, 2023

1

T-Series

Views this week: 747,417,372

0%

LW

1

All-Time Views: 241,039,637,420

All-Time Subs: 255,000,000

2

Anaya Kandhal

Views this week: 464,636,403

-1%

LW

2

All-Time Views: 12,929,736,281

All-Time Subs: 18,300,000

3

Toys and Colors

Views this week: 405,085,518

-9%

LW

3

All-Time Views: 55,854,822,422

All-Time Subs: 49,100,000

4

ZAMZAM ELECTRONICS TRADING

Views this week: 393,581,903

-4%

LW

4

All-Time Views: 17,562,788,568

All-Time Subs: 40,100,000

5

Filaretiki

Views this week: 351,195,723

1%

LW

7

All-Time Views: 20,105,169,157

All-Time Subs: 19,900,000

6

KL BRO Biju Rithvik

Views this week: 349,485,968

-12%

LW

6

All-Time Views: 28,439,454,491

All-Time Subs: 36,700,000

7

MrBeast

Views this week: 331,972,360

-18%

LW

5

All-Time Views: 38,771,331,971

All-Time Subs: 219,000,000

8

MaviGadget

Views this week: 307,666,601

20%

LW

32

All-Time Views: 15,074,816,212

All-Time Subs: 18,200,000

9

Neetu Bisht

Views this week: 307,052,987

14%

LW

26

All-Time Views: 13,755,181,321

All-Time Subs: 20,400,000

10

SET India

Views this week: 305,034,985

-5%

LW

10

All-Time Views: 155,252,827,631

All-Time Subs: 166,000,000

11

Sierra & Rhia FAM

Views this week: 300,841,067

23%

LW

37

All-Time Views: 7,744,515,049

All-Time Subs: 7,190,000

12

김프로KIMPRO

Views this week: 291,901,541

-15%

LW

9

All-Time Views: 29,996,720,997

All-Time Subs: 29,300,000

13

Diary of 4

Views this week: 284,520,161

-1%

LW

17

All-Time Views: 6,095,650,945

All-Time Subs: 3,540,000

14

Zee TV

Views this week: 280,471,722

10%

LW

N/A

All-Time Views: 84,073,518,618

All-Time Subs: 75,300,000

15

Sony SAB

Views this week: 276,114,051

-8%

LW

15

All-Time Views: 108,000,808,690

All-Time Subs: 87,800,000

16

Real fools shorts official

Views this week: 268,856,089

-9%

LW

13

All-Time Views: 10,802,555,886

All-Time Subs: 26,600,000

17

ViralHog

Views this week: 268,316,316

-4%

LW

20

All-Time Views: 25,306,497,406

All-Time Subs: 19,900,000

18

Alfredo Larin

Views this week: 265,994,797

-2%

LW

23

All-Time Views: 22,161,317,175

All-Time Subs: 26,800,000

19

Celine Dept

Views this week: 264,063,919

-18%

LW

12

All-Time Views: 10,730,491,690

All-Time Subs: 18,600,000

20

Vlad and Niki

Views this week: 253,711,597

-1%

LW

33

All-Time Views: 82,663,902,486

All-Time Subs: 106,000,000

21

Filmy Suraj Actor

Views this week: 251,023,900

-8%

LW

16

All-Time Views: 5,365,688,961

All-Time Subs: 14,400,000

22

Moosa Tv Info

Views this week: 245,686,829

-27%

LW

11

All-Time Views: 9,709,192,220

All-Time Subs: 11,300,000

23

HAYATAKU はやたく

Views this week: 241,037,559

-12%

LW

22

All-Time Views: 7,120,055,227

All-Time Subs: 7,380,000

24

✿ Kids Diana Show

Views this week: 239,700,270

-7%

LW

31

All-Time Views: 98,178,533,543

All-Time Subs: 117,000,000

25

ISSEI / いっせい

Views this week: 235,057,919

-16%

LW

18

All-Time Views: 19,780,420,493

All-Time Subs: 20,600,000

26

HAR PAL GEO

Views this week: 233,686,459

-8%

LW

34

All-Time Views: 46,499,269,551

All-Time Subs: 48,600,000

27

Dangal TV Channel

Views this week: 232,683,000

-3%

LW

39

All-Time Views: 17,404,516,434

All-Time Subs: 26,400,000

28

ARY Digital HD

Views this week: 223,329,599

-15%

LW

29

All-Time Views: 45,522,260,047

All-Time Subs: 49,400,000

29

Spider VAMBI

Views this week: 223,094,704

-19%

LW

25

All-Time Views: 11,475,466,178

All-Time Subs: 15,800,000

30

HiFunnie

Views this week: 221,296,011

-21%

LW

21

All-Time Views: 8,820,724,821

All-Time Subs: 6,970,000

31

StarPlus

Views this week: 219,364,602

-10%

LW

38

All-Time Views: 34,448,095,174

All-Time Subs: 36,800,000

32

ToRung

Views this week: 215,455,860

-35%

LW

8

All-Time Views: 3,339,818,272

All-Time Subs: 6,790,000

33

Vijay Television

Views this week: 213,654,021

7%

LW

53

All-Time Views: 34,554,882,041

All-Time Subs: 22,300,000

34

Tibo InShape

Views this week: 212,424,563

-20%

LW

27

All-Time Views: 7,566,619,288

All-Time Subs: 13,300,000

35

Vivaan and Tanya

Views this week: 211,639,913

68%

LW

140

All-Time Views: 1,768,553,217

All-Time Subs: 2,360,000

36

The Mannii Show

Views this week: 204,631,845

14%

LW

66

All-Time Views: 7,536,682,051

All-Time Subs: 8,320,000

37

BROTHERS VLOG

Views this week: 204,137,962

38%

LW

95

All-Time Views: 7,176,683,810

All-Time Subs: 14,500,000

38

Mr DegrEE

Views this week: 202,831,732

-28%

LW

19

All-Time Views: 19,203,332,922

All-Time Subs: 22,600,000

39

Linh Nhi Shorts

Views this week: 202,620,043

-10%

LW

42

All-Time Views: 13,498,377,798

All-Time Subs: 14,800,000

40

Cute Krashiv

Views this week: 200,279,322

70%

LW

164

All-Time Views: 3,578,386,986

All-Time Subs: 2,880,000

41

One More Spanish

Views this week: 199,730,900

62%

LW

174

All-Time Views: 2,037,168,878

All-Time Subs: 2,270,000

42

BEN EAGLE

Views this week: 198,595,626

-10%

LW

44

All-Time Views: 5,465,793,839

All-Time Subs: 11,600,000

43

Marta and Rustam

Views this week: 198,016,378

-11%

LW

43

All-Time Views: 23,488,740,232

All-Time Subs: 26,500,000

44

萌萌与舞桐

Views this week: 197,518,059

20%

LW

86

All-Time Views: 1,073,140,750

All-Time Subs: 1,970,000

44

HAR PAL GEO

Views this week: 236,946,166

-1%

LW

31

All-Time Views: 45,751,270,895

All-Time Subs: 48,000,000

46

Dangal TV Channel

Views this week: 234,863,958

6%

LW

39

All-Time Views: 16,680,179,262

All-Time Subs: 25,600,000

47

ISSEI / いっせい

Views this week: 233,193,538

-1%

LW

33

All-Time Views: 19,052,816,164

All-Time Subs: 19,700,000

48

The geeta gurjar

Views this week: 230,688,881

6%

LW

43

All-Time Views: 10,053,803,015

All-Time Subs: 16,300,000

49

Priyal Kukreja

Views this week: 225,065,873

7%

LW

46

All-Time Views: 14,605,770,118

All-Time Subs: 25,500,000

50

CuRe 구래

Views this week: 221,739,705

17%

LW

62

All-Time Views: 12,021,981,931

All-Time Subs: 17,700,000

Here’s how you can prepare for digital marketing shifts.

The Biggest Challenges Marketers May Face In 2023

At its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2020, Apple announced iOS 14 and new privacy features. As a result, marketers have less data to use to understand customers and personalize marketing efforts. However, that announcement was just the start.

Now, we’re looking toward a cookieless future. Google is planning to make cookies a thing of the past by the end of 2024. We need to start preparing in 2023 for the change.

How To Get The Upper Hand

If you know about stocks and investing, you know that the strongest portfolios are usually the most diverse. No expert investor will throw all of their resources into one stock, because if that stock fails, they’ll lose everything.

Marketers can learn from investors. Throwing all of your marketing budget into one or two strategies puts your business at risk. Instead, diversify your approach. For example, keep running your ads because they’ll still be relevant without cookies, but also invest in email marketing.

The most effective content marketing strategies work together to fill in the gaps where some strategies are weak or where you aren’t reaching customers. By using diverse strategiesin tandem, you reach the most customers and aren’t impacted as significantly by changes.

Four Strategies To Excel At Marketing In 2023

Here are four strategies to add to your arsenal of digital marketing tools to ensure that you continue reaching customers in a more restrictive digital world:

1. Gather First-Party Data

First-party data will likely be the most valuable source of information in 2023 as third-party data continues to go the way of the dinosaurs. Instead of purchasing information from outside companies, rely on your own assets to gather customer data. According to a Gartner survey, 79% of consumers want more control over their personal information and its use. You will benefit from respecting customers’ privacy and turning to first-party data instead of using outside data.

Some valuable sources of first-party data include:

• Website visitor tracking.

• Digital forms and surveys.

• Social media interactions.

• Customer service interactions.

• Marketing email and text message responses.

2. Run Pay-Per-Click Ads With First-Party Data

Many e-commerce retailers rely on Google and social media ads to retarget and create an ad funnel. For example, imagine a customer stopped by your website and looked at new dresses but left. Retailers retarget by showing ads on other sites to entice the customer back.However, Apple’s privacy updates are making that more difficult, and cookieless browsing will only make it harder.

Thankfully, retargeting through ads is still possible.

Many marketers are turning to services like Google’s Customer Match, or Facebook’s Custom Audiences. These solutions use a custom audience list that businesses create with first-party data and match that list to users on the ad platform. That way, companies can deliver personalized ads to customers based on first-party data to create an ad funnel.

3. Focus On Email And Text Message Marketing

Email and text message marketing are two of the most valuable first-party data sources. Through these marketing channels, you can target specific customers and segments. For example, you can divide your email list by location and send out location-specific promotions to customers. According to research by eMarketer, most consumers prefer personalized emails based on behaviors like purchase history.

Then, you can track which customers open emails and text messages and how they respond to the content. This data will allow you to customize marketing to current customers based on behaviors, like how they respond to certain promotions.

4. Work With Brand Ambassadors And Influencers

Brand ambassadors and influencers will likely play a crucial role in 2023 as companies continue to find creative ways to reach their target audiences without the help of cookies and data-tracking tools. In 2022, more than 75% of brand marketers planned to budget for influencer marketing. You can choose an influencer with a niche audience to help you reach your target market.

Brand ambassadors and influencers promote businesses more personally than a traditional ad that pops up on someone’s social media feed. Brand ambassadors are friendly and familiar faces offering product recommendations, which boosts your brand’s authenticity.

Rahul Singh, founder of Winkl, a platform that helps brands execute, manage and track influencer marketing campaigns: “In April and May we saw a 60% dip in business.” Winkl works with brands such as Amazon, Flipkart and Dabur, among others.

Brands are definitely staying away from promotional activities with influencers at this moment, said Ashutosh Harbola, founder of influencer marketing company Buzzoka. “I have not received a single client brief in the last three weeks or so. There’s a fear among top advertisers of being trolled for being tone deaf to the worsening state of the pandemic in the country if they indulge in promotions.”

Big spenders such as fashion & lifestyle, cosmetics and travel categories have paused their promotions. “Any company which cares about the image of its brand has delayed promotions. Brands are a lot of perception, after all,” said Singh.

What is an Amazon Influencer? As a member of the Amazon Influencer Program, you are a content creator who provides recommendations to inspire your audience via social media. If you are a media company or a brand and want to drive traffic to Amazon, you should apply to the Amazon Associates Program instead.

According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India’s influencer market is estimated at $75-150 million a year, as compared to the global market of $1.75 billion.

Second Wave Slowdown?

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty brand, Plum, which works with a variety of influencers, has taken a conscious decision to slow down campaigns and promotions.

“We did slowdown in terms of influencer marketing campaigns especially in May. We respected the wishes of those influencers who were choosing not to partner at this time. So, there were several promotions and campaigns that were pushed out,” said Arushi Thapar, senior marketing manager at Plum.

Renowned chef Tanaz Godiwala had to pause all influencer collaborations with food bloggers as her cloud kitchen venture A Parsi Affair was impacted by the second wave. With state-imposed restrictions in Maharashtra, there have been multiple challenges in sourcing ingredients, delivery as well as staff safety.

“Owing to the fact that there is no business happening, we are tight on the money to spend on influencers. We are doing bare basic postings on social media platforms and promoting safety and well-being messages. Nobody is going to spend money on luxury items in the current scheme of things,” Godiwala said.

Is the choice of platform post pandemic changing?

Businesses and creators leveraged Facebook and Instagram to enhance their reach online more than ever during the pandemic, but digital marketing had started booming when Google and Facebook became popular

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=813283942867862

Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram have become the go-to platforms, especially in the last two-three years, for promoting and advertising products. In 2020, though, Instagram turned out to be the most preferred platform for influencer marketing, with it being the choice of 82% marketers, as per Buzzoka, a Noida-based influencer marketing company. Released in March, the fourth edition of Buzzoka’s Influencer Marketing Outlook (an annual survey that offers a detailed look at the influencer marketing landscape) revealed that YouTube was the second-most preferred platform with 41% votes. The survey included over 300 senior marketers and leading brands across India. Around 72% of the marketers believed that influencer marketing is the fastest-growing online customer acquisition method.

In their earnings report published on Bloomberg on April 30, Amazon, Facebook and Google revealed that people had become more dependent on their offerings since the shutdowns and that this trend could drive long-term growth. The companies said their advertising and e-commerce revenue streams remained immune to the problem of business contraction during these times.

The three pivotal moments in history, however, that defined the digital shift remain the launch of Jio, demonetisation and the pandemic, with the latter being the major reason businesses shifted online, according to Bengaluru-based Abhinav Arora, co-founder and CMO, Avalon Meta, an alternative online education platform.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPK1S09pJrF/

Another factor that contributed to the boom was the fact that offline projects and shoots were halted. As mobile consumption spiked significantly, brands increased their spending on digital and influencer-led marketing campaigns, shares Mumbai-based Viraj Sheth, co-founder and CEO, Monk Entertainment, a creative digital media organisation. According to Sheth, digital and social media marketing allow one to track the key performance indicators, something that has not been possible with the other mediums in the past. This, in turn, fetches extremely targeted data, which helps analyse the campaign RoI better and take effective steps for the next campaign.

Influencer marketing is an important component of digital and social media marketing today. It involves utilising the services of an influencer with a considerable number of followers to market a product in exchange of payment or the product/services. According to estimates by research company Insider Intelligence (based on data by California-headquartered influencer marketing agency Mediakix), the influencer marketing industry will be worth $15 billion by 2022 up from $8 billion in 2019.

Facebook India’s Bhushan shares that businesses have started communicating with their customers in creative ways, including immersive ad units through influencer marketing. “With digital influence up by 25% across categories, large and small brands are using branded content by creators to drive business impact,” he says, adding, “There’s a natural affinity to interact with public figures, creators and brands. Brands are essentially looking for one thing: business impact. This could be in the form of sales or salience. Leveraging branded content with influencers is a way to deliver on both objectives. They can essentially choose to work with a creator, who has an authentic voice and represents the brand well, to bring alive their content.”

Sharing a few such instances, Bhushan says, “Some examples would be Hyundai, which launched its sedan Aura with influencers and saw a five-point lift in awareness. Similarly, there was a 2.3-point increase in purchase intent for Cadbury when they used influencers. Even a small business like myBageecha, which is into gardening products, recently leveraged branded content in partnership with actor Kareena Kapoor Khan, resulting in a significant ad recall lift of 3.5 points.”

However, there are certain rules when it comes to influencer marketing. In February this year, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) issued draft rules for influencers on digital media platforms to protect consumer interest. According to the new rules, an influencer has to specify if their content is through a paid partnership and this should be visible on all mediums like phones, tablet, etc, prominently.

The way forward to influencing..

• A B2B brand should choose LinkedIn
• For a consumer brand, Instagram is best
• Once on the platform, one must regularly share authentic content to build audience trust
• One must ensure that purchase (or conversion) flow is smooth and user-friendly on app/site
• Brands should reproduce the user journey themselves and optimise it
• Identify and collaborate with digital influencers and content creators in one’s industry

Social media is abuzz with photos and videos of people confining themselves in their residences.

But a heart warming  video of two children from Nalbari district of lower Assam performing on a popular Assamese love song ‘Ei Hahi Bhaal Laage‘ is being widely shared on social media and is winning hearts.

But the wow-factor in it is the fact that the duo performed the song using a makeshift drum kit.

While the girl sings the song, the boy performs on a makeshift drum kit made up of cardboard boxes, packaging material, banana tree trunks, bamboo and a metal tray.

The broadcast starts with the girl saying, “Namaskar, we are going to do ‘timepass’ by singing”.

She then begins to sing the popular song by singer and former All India Radio artiste Nasreen Halim from Dibrugarh whose lyrics were written by Hemanta Dutta.

The performance by the children broadcast from a Facebook account Rupali Pranamita have  received a positive response of netizens and has been shared by 13,000 plus users and liked by 14,000 users in Facebook  and a lot of people praised them for their creativity and inquisitive mindset.

Another  performance on immortal Assamese numbers ‘Phul Phulise Boxontat‘ and ‘Moina Kun Bidhataai Hajile‘  that has been doing rounds in the social media are by Nandy sisters – Antara and Akita Nandy performing on the occasion of Rongali Bihu in Youtube which has crossed 34,000 views in three days.

The duo presented a ‘Balcony Bihu Concert’ on the first day of Assamese New Year in the YouTube channel ‘ANTARA NANDY’

Playing Ukuleles and drapped in blue and black coloured traditional mekhala-chadors, Antara and Akita Nandy performed on the balcony of a home.

Antara Nandy in her twitter handle @AntaraNandy tweeted, “Bihu is a spirit – We can stay home and yet enjoy Bihu by spreading positivity in our own way – here’s ours! Sending loads of love from Pune to all our Assamese Listeners!”

Complementing for their performance Assam health and finance Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma on his Twitter handle @himantabiswa tweeted,

“After a hectic day, it is refreshing to hear this Soulful Bihu from Antara and Ankita Nandi -Phul Phulise Boxontot | Moina Kun Bidhataai | Nandy Sisters | Bihu Balco…” (sic) while sharing the link of their performance in YouTube.

Much like the printed artefact in 17th-century London, social media has become the public platform of choice for the COVID-19 crisis – the first pandemic of the digital age.

In the last few weeks, digital natives and netizens have thronged social media platforms. And in such large numbers, one might add, that the media influencer’s pipe dream, of breaking the internet, has seemed a genuine possibility. Internet service providers in the UK have seen double-digit increases in traffic amid the coronavirus lockdown, and streaming services from Netflix to Disney+ are cutting bandwidth usage to prevent network congestion.

In the US, there were nearly 20 million mentions of coronavirus-related terms on social media, within hours of the World Health Organisation declaring the COVID-19 crisis a pandemic on March 11. In the following days, the trending hashtag-based campaign #safehandschallenge (also started by the WHO) has seen a host of global celebrities – from Selena Gomez to Deepika Padukone – educate the public on the mundane act of hand-washing through carefully curated social media performances. However, the issues of access and privilege that plague social media platforms, particularly in the Indian context, beg the question: Can spectacular social media platforms handle the quotidian coronavirus crisis?

It is often said that the history of diseases is the history of human civilisation. And the foundation of human civilisation is also the mundanity of manual contact. Everyday and necessary, but often unseen, transactions of money or goods between strangers have driven human progress for millennia. But in exceptional times (like our current crisis of contagion) we have looked for egalitarian and non-human surrogates of information: a (new) media. The search for credible yet democratic media paradigms, however, has rarely been smooth.

In the last century, the movement for democratising mass media was galvanised during the May 1968 unrest in France. These protests led the French situationist Guy Debord to claim in The Society of the Spectacle – a book that has since been translated into nearly a dozen languages – that mass media thrives within an alienated and consumerist fantasy.

Now sitting in the 21st century, a call for discarding all networked mass media may seem delusional. But it is worth revisiting how the shift from traditional mass media to new (social) media has led an era where, to rephrase Andy Warhol, everyone will be world-famous for 60 seconds. An attention economy has catalysed this transition, from low-key chat rooms to 60-second digital extravaganzas. The result: truth and legitimacy most often become collateral damage in these networked spectacles.

Network lessons from quotidian corona

“[T]he quotidian is what is humble…what is taken for granted . . . undated and (apparently) insignificant.”
∼ Henri Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World

The current COVID-19 crisis is by contrast a quotidian disaster – an anti-spectacle. The coronavirus is indifferent about humanity. The perpetrator of this disaster does not identify victims by class, creed, religion or sexuality. It remains invisible to the naked eye but is not miraculous, magical or sacred. The virus is not circulated through hidden test tubes smuggled by secret organisations. Instead, the virus gains enormous latitude through ordinary manual contact with humans and material objects.

Resistance against the coronavirus involves mundane practices like social distancing and washing hands which (without discounting the economic and social privileges involved) society normally categorises as ordinary and banal. Recording the effects of the virus does not involve drone-based targeting of veiled enemy assets or covert sting operations. Chronicling its effects is also unremarkable, laborious and time consuming. It requires a recording of the everyday life cycle of affected victims: a slow and painstaking process by any count.

In other words, the COVID-19 crisis is not a disaster that can be delivered in byte-sized snippets to a globe-trotting populace that constantly puts a premium on shock and titillation.

India, although a recent entrant within the global hierarchy of producing and consuming digital media spectacles, is fast catching up (Indians consume over 11 GB data every month). Nielsen, the market research firm, reports that social media conversations in India around COVID-19 have seen a massive surge of 50x between January and March 2020.

Social media enthusiasts will argue that spectacular campaigns are needed in a country like India, where only two out of 10 poor households use soap. However, questions remain if current social media frameworks can address caste and class privileges, which are key factors behind such dismal personal hygiene statistics amongst underprivileged communities. Such disparities are only augmented by the fact that out of 560 million people in India who have access to the web, only 294 million users use social media. Coupled with such inequality in access, a recent report in The Wire suggests, the COVID-19 crisis has seen a deluge of deliberate misinformation on Indian digital platforms, which has contributed to further marginalisation of at-risk-minorities.

A decade ago, Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the world wide web, had lamented in his prescient article ‘Long Live the Web‘ that the insulating nature of social networking sites is increasingly preventing the democratisation of the web:

“Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands.”

Berners-Lee’s claims are contested by pragmatists like Alexander Galloway, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, who point out that this fragmentation is inevitable since the very foundation of the internet – its protocols – is based in the principles of control and not freedom. In fact as this era of surveillance capitalism shows regularly, shutting down a country’s internet is far less difficult (and increasingly more common) than one would imagine.

So, does the answer lie in moving away from social media in this crisis? Absolutely not.

The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for a re-engagement with everyday threats that are most often beyond the realm of social media spectacles: public health lapses, climate change issues, unequal technological frameworks and discriminatory social, political and legal decisions to name a few. It is an opportune moment to recognise that social media is not just meant to be a “network without a cause”. Indeed, the social media we want should work for everyone and it is up to us to make that happen. And contrary to expectations, such possibilities do exist.

For example, UNESCO’s ‘Horyu’ is “a social network for social good [that takes] a humanistic approach to technology to promote social good through quality content and meaningful interaction”. There are also GnuSocial, OpenSource-SocialNetwork and the Diaspora Foundation, which allow you to create your own social networks with a particular focus on access, freedom and privacy. They offer tangible alternatives to social media platforms, where your data is centrally located and regularly monetised.

Closer home, organisations like Janastu that provide free open-source software solutions and support to non-profits and NGOs as well as the Internet Freedom Foundation, which has championed net neutrality and individual privacy in India (including a recent representation on COVID-19 quarantine lists that are being circulated on social media) show us how in today’s world of networked capitalism, we can be distant without being socially isolated.

The COVID-19 crisis has given us a unique chance to be empathetic ethnographers of the everyday. To amplify the voices of migrant workers who work in our homes and offices, to understand the labour of medical care givers who toil on without expectations, and to acknowledge the polyphony of ordinary subaltern voices who often remain hidden under the spectacular glory of social media heroes.

A democratic and egalitarian social media space that includes a diversity of voices may not be spectacular. It may not thrive on glamour and theatricality but on the mundane and ordinariness of our everyday lives. But it is the space we should strive for.
Because ultimately, heroes are ordinary.

This article republished from The Wire.

In India, Twitter timelines and WhatsApp forwards are chock-full of claims that coronavirus can be treated by homoeopathic drugs promoted by the ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, yoga & naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and homoeopathy). 

In January, the ministry released a public advisory claiming that homoeopathic drugs can be used for the prevention of infection. However, it was later confirmed as false news by the fact-checking website AltNews. There are no vaccines available to cure coronavirus infection, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

In addition to this, social media platforms also have videos promoting cow dung and cow urine as a cure for coronavirus, which has been propagated as gospel for the Hindi heartland. Many such claims of home-made remedies supposedly meant to cure coronavirus are rampant across social media platforms. We found plenty of examples of Twitter and Facebook, which violate the so-called policies in place to stop the spread of misinformation, but these posts have not been taken down.

Social Media’s Efforts To Curb Fake News

In response to the coronavirus misinformation spree, internet giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube had pledged to work with WHO and third-party fact-checking platforms to regulate online content and fish out fake news and misinformation regarding the coronavirus. 

Twitter launched a search prompt for India in collaboration with the ministry of health and family welfare and the World Health Organisation (WHO). This will mean that all Twitter searches for coronavirus or any related terms, will be shown flash links to WHO’s website.

Google, Facebook, and YouTube will also be following the same process. The step will ensure that users are getting their information from more reliable sources. Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers are also reported to have started removing content with claims that have been debunked by WHO and local health authorities. Chinese short video app TikTok too started asking its users to verify facts about coronavirus with trusted sources, by flashing warnings in eight Indian languages. Moreover, the platform is also asking its users to report any content that violates TikTik’s community guidelines.

But how effective are these measures? Beyond searches, links and articles claiming to cure coronavirus have become very commonplace in India. Last week, an Ola driver sent us a video in response to questions about the steps being taken by the company to promote awareness about the infection and the disease. The video showed a religious leader providing home remedies and cures to the coronavirus infection. Such videos are being forwarded with glee by unsuspecting users.

As schools and offices shut down, all international and national business events are being cancelled, there is an obvious panic around the spread of coronavirus, which is being exploited by those looking to capitalise on the panic. In times of such pandemics, the impact of people believing each and every piece of information found online can have severe consequences. For example, the panic has resulted in a shortage of face masks and hand sanitisers — both of which are less than ideal in the fight against the epidemic 

This also raises the question of intermediary liability — should social media companies be held responsible for the spread of false information or does the buck stop with the users? 

The Indian government had proposed a draft of IT intermediary guidelines of December 2018. Under which, it proposed social media sites to remove any “illegal” content within 24 hours, upon being notified by court order or a government agency. 

This article republished from Inc42

Indian animation, for the longest time and still to a very large degree, had the perception of being an outsourced industry. “People imagine that we are like warehouses or sweatshops or call centres essentially, where people send work,” says Nikunj Patel, founder of design consultancy Studio Moebius.

But slowly, that is changing. As more independent artists use their voices and create original content, although it hasn’t reached the mainstream yet, people have certainly started to notice that “we don’t just have animators, we also have storytellers”.

Patel — credited with creating India’s first completely hand-animated music video for the Sandunes track “Exit Strategy” — is among these storytellers, part of a burgeoning independent art scene in India that has been shaped tremendously, along with the design industry, by technology and social media.

“One of the big trends I’ve seen, which I think is really great for the scene, is that a lot of young people right now are happy to start off on their own, when they’re quite young or even straight out of college,” says Avinash Kumar, artist, designer, and co-founder of the design consultancy Quicksand. Young artists today freelance or set up their own studios, prioritising independence. “For me, those are signs that the indie scene is developing.” And feeling independent, they are breaking earlier norms about what work should look and be like. “The work that these people do reflects their independent spirit,” he says.

This independent spirit is also aided by social media and the community of like-minded people it affords.

While about 15 years ago in India it would have been difficult to locate anyone doing experimental, fringe work, in the last five years or so, social media has allowed for fast growing connection between artists. “That I think is quite healthy and from that, conversations are emerging,” says Kumar. Connecting with other artists and sowing the seeds of an integrated scene is much easier now than it used to be.

Besides building a scene, social media is also allowing for a more nuanced form of communication. “Suddenly, you’re finding a lot of unexpected collaborations and partnerships happening,” says Patel. “International collaborations are definitely going to pick up a lot.” As people do experimental work and then congregate online, “there’s this culture that’s developing where talent isn’t being chained and people are essentially moving around the scene. It’s quite inspiring to see,” he adds.

Important for these indie artists is realising that adapting to new technology — instead of adhering to rigid purist fantasies about methods of creations — is vital. For instance, “it’s important for animators to realise that you can’t always be romantic about your creation process,” says Patel, simply because most consumers neither understand, nor care, about the amount of effort going into creating art. “If you could adopt a new way of creating through maybe using coding or generative animation, and create the same thing in a week that may have otherwise taken you six months to turn into a 2D animation film, why wouldn’t you go for the one week option?”

Methods of creation like code-based art and software like Touch-Designer, while allowing for faster work then, are also making certain skills redundant. “There’s a whole lot of tech which is making what used to be specialist activity stuff that a teenager can now do on their phone,” says Kumar.

However, shifting focus from skill is, simultaneously, making art more accessible.

“People who don’t necessarily draw, or sculpt, or carve, are able to explore the same thought process as an artists’,” explains Patel. Essentially, one doesn’t need to spend 10 years mastering a style to be considered an artist or dedicate a lifetime toward acquiring a skill. Such platforms, in essence, empower a variety of non-traditional artists to create art, allowing people to bring the concepts in their mind to life. A computer engineer can do code-based art, an electronic engineer can present installations, a musician can create transmedia art for their live shows, and so on.

This influx of ‘non-artists’ into the indie art scene is largely responsible for its rapid proliferation. While the community around new media has been building in the metros since the late 90s or early 2000s, the growth has increased at a much faster rate in the past five years. Because of these new mediums, which weren’t available before, “a whole new audience is being exposed and a whole new creator network is being formed which is definitely beyond the cities and much more spread out,” says Kumar. “I think in the coming years we’ll see the impact of that as it builds up.”

This rapidly transforming scene, while democratising art, is also impacting creators’ mental health and creativity. “Because everybody has access to so many tools and all the tools are becoming similar… I feel like the overall aesthetic of people is becoming similar,” says Kumar. In a world where everyone can see everything and it all looks similar, the idea of what is creative is starting to be affected, also causing stress and anxiety among creators.

“Before, say in 2010, you could have a blog and make your artwork and put it up, almost like your own diary, have your friends watch it and be happy,” says Kumar. Today, when an artist puts something up, they will either find other artists whose diary looks exactly like theirs, or find that nobody really watches, consumes, or even cares about their art, because everyone has already seen too many things. “The whole thing creates a lot of creative existential dilemma for creators,” adds Kumar.

As a result of living in this repetitive loop, artists’ interest levels also often plummet. “Most people you speak to, they say ‘this has already been done,’ and we’re just human beings, everything will be done,” says Kumar. The difference now is the knowledge that it’s done. “This used to happen before but we didn’t know that somebody sitting in New York is also thinking like us. We just didn’t know it. And now that we know it, we feel it’s boring and it makes us less inspired,” explains Kumar.

Connection on social media is also often limited to the attractive visual work, not allowing for a deeper, human connection that focuses on processes and failures. To combat all this, creators first need an awareness of the issues such platforms create. It’s important for artists to “deliberately disconnect, to preserve your own feeling and not get carried away by all of these things,” says Kumar. “It’s just about having a balanced diet of media.”

It’s also for this reason that Kumar has been organising the EyeMyth Media Arts Festival since 2011, 2019 being the first year that included a two-day conference with over 50 speakers, all their talks focusing on process, vulnerability, and honesty about what life as an artist actually entails. When one listens to so many people going through similar struggles, but still creating artwork, “the learning is very different and much deeper,” says Kumar.

EyeMyth is among the few instances of a critical engagement with the digital arts community in India, and with it, Kumar is making a case for the importance of physical connection. “The community in India around this kind of work is already quite small and we felt like it would be useful to first understand how big that community is and what it is actually doing and get a better sense of them as people. That was the main reason to do the conference,” explains Kumar.

And in spite of the disruption technology and social media have effected in the design industry and indie art scene, for Kumar, the basics remain unchanged. “In the current world, to help people understand, you have to use this vocabulary — like ‘digital’ and things like that,” he says. “But the truth is, it’s art and it’s storytelling and it’s the same that it’s been for hundreds and thousands of years.”

This article was originally published on Firstpost

The requirement comes as governments around the world are trying to hold social media companies more accountable for the content that circulates on their platforms, whether it’s fake news, child porn, racist invective or terrorism-related content. India’s new guidelines go further than most other countries’ by requiring blanket cooperation with government inquiries, no warrant or judicial order required.

India proposed these guidelines in Dec. 2018 and asked for public comment. The Internet and Mobile Association of India, a trade group that counts Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google among its members, responded that the requirements “would be a violation of the right to privacy recognized by the Supreme Court.”

But the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is expected to publish the new rules later this month without major changes, according to a government official familiar with the matter.

“The guidelines for intermediaries are under process,” said N.N. Kaul, the media adviser to the minister of electronics & information technology. “We cannot comment on the guidelines or changes till they are published.”

The provisions in the earlier draft had required platforms such as Google’s YouTube or ByteDance Inc.’s TikTok, Facebook or its Instagram and WhatsApp apps, to help the government trace the origins of a post within 72 hours of a request. The companies would also have to preserve their records for at least 180 days to aid government investigators, establish a brick-and-mortar operation within India and appoint both a grievance officer to deal with user complaints and a government liaison. The Ministry is still finalizing the language and content.

The rules cover all social media and messaging apps with more than 5 million users. India, with 1.3 billion people, has about 500 million internet users. It isn’t clear whether the identities of foreign users would be subject to the Indian government’s inquiries.

Law enforcement agencies around the world have been frustrated by tech companies that have refused to identify users, unlock devices or generally cooperate with government investigations, particularly in cases relating to terrorism.

In India, where the internet — and fake news — are still relatively new phenomenon, a false report of rampant child abduction and organ harvesting circulated widely via WhatsApp, leading to mob violence and over three dozen fatal lynchings in 2017 and 2018.

WhatsApp refused a request from the government to reveal the origins of the rumors, citing its promise of privacy and end-to-end encryption for its 400 million Indian users. It instead offered to fund research into preventing the spread of fake news and mounted a public education campaign in the country, its biggest global market.

WhatsApp will “not compromise on security because that would make people less safe,” it said in a statement Wednesday, adding its global user base had reached over 2 billion. “For even more protection, we work with top security experts, employ industry leading technology to stop misuse as well as provide controls and ways to report issues — without sacrificing privacy.”

At the same time, tech companies and civil rights groups say the new rules are an invitation to abuse and censorship, as well as a burdensome requirement on new and growing companies.

In an open letter to India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, executives from Mozilla Corp., GitHub Inc. and Cloudflare Inc. said the guidelines could lead to “automated censorship” and “increase surveillance.“ In order to be able to trace the originator of content, platforms would basically be required to surveil their users, undermine encryption, and harm the fundamental right to privacy of Indian users, they said.

Companies such as Mozilla or Wikipedia wouldn’t fall under the new rules, the government official said. Browsers, operating systems, and online repositories of knowledge, software development platforms, are all exempt. Only social media platforms and messaging apps will be covered.

Republished from Fortune