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.

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

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

The requirement would likely raise a host of technical and policy issues for companies including Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram units, Twitter and Chinese app TikTok, all of which have millions of users in India.

Companies would have to offer a mechanism for users to prove their identities and display that verification publicly, akin to the blue check-mark that Twitter has used to confirm the authenticity of some high-profile accounts, including those belonging to celebrities and politicians.

Verification would be optional for users, the sources said.

The Personal Data Protection bill, whose first draft was made public last year, is keenly awaited by top technology companies and industry stakeholders as it could alter the way all major internet companies process, store and transfer Indian consumers’ data.

The identity verification requirement, introduced in the latest draft of the bill, would be one of the most ambitious efforts globally to battle disinformation and fake news, which is often spread by pseudonymous or fake accounts.

“The idea was to reduce the spread of fake news and online trolling,” said one of the sources, a federal IT ministry official.

The privacy bill was cleared by cabinet on Wednesday and will be presented to parliament soon, officials said. But passage is not imminent, one of the sources said, as the legislation will likely be referred to a parliamentary expert committee or a panel for further review.

Since 2017, fake news and rumour-mongering on social media in India has led to more than 30 deaths, data portal IndiaSpend said last year.

The companies have taken some measures to combat the problem — including a move by WhatsApp to limit group-forwarding of messages.

But Facebook and other companies have resisted the idea that they should verify the identify of their users, partly on the grounds that people in many countries would struggle to provide sufficient documentation.

The voluntary verification scheme would give users more confidence in the validity of information on the verified accounts, though it would not eliminate fake accounts.

We wait to see how this will affect social media spending by advertisers and brands who rely on analytics provided by their digital agencies which are not exactly accurate most times.