As government departments have begun to use social media with some amazingly encouraging results, they are not only realising the power of this new tool but also some attendant concerns. Users of the social media outside the government are equally concerned because there is little transparency about the way the government goes about blocking certain websites. Experts debated these and other key issues regarding regulation of the social media, in a panel discussion ‘Gov 2.0 for India’ at the Gov2.in Forum in New Delhi on Friday.

Census Commissioner C Chandramouli and Navdeep Suri, head of the public diplomacy division in the ministry of external affairs (MEA), shared their elation at the positive response from the general public to the use of social media by the government departments. Suri recounted the MEA’s highly effective use of Twitter during the Libyan crisis, with the department posting authentic real-time information which in turn helped it to bring back stranded Indians from not just Tripoli but also the Misratah steel plant. Chandramouli explained how his department engaged the general public with the largest administrative exercise in the world through the social media. 

Both, however, highlighted the need to regulate these media as well. Shankar Aggarwal, additional secretary, department of information technology, said while information on the blocked sites was not available in the public domain the government was in the process of devising a mechanism to facilitate the same.

Pavan Duggal, a supreme court lawyer who specialises in cyber law, outlined the concerns on both sides: the government has no policy for social media; there is little distinction between personal and official accounts of the government officials; there is no clarity on just who is liable in case of transgressions on the social media networks; and the fact that Gov2.0 needs to be integrated into the new IT law. Duggal pointed out that the law makes little distinction between a blogger and a web merchant, which, he said, called for a more extensive debate on the draft IT law.

Since 65 percent of the spectrum remains with the army, as Ravi Saxena, additional chief secretary, Gujarat, reminded, the social media is bound to remain constricted in its reach. Yet, he emphasised, there was no way governments could ignore the impact of the social media in governance any longer. Shashank Ojha, senior e-government specialist with the World Bank, said even as India had a lot of catching up to do it should aspire to reach the level of the European Union which allows discussions on its policies online instead of just disseminating information on its website as the United States and Australia are doing.