An informative Webinar was held by NISSMAT International on 09th Oct 2020 on the subject “Social Media – A Boon or A Curse”. The webinar was attended largely by delegates from all over the globe.
About this Webinar
NISSMAT Speakers Forum · Session 103 — held Friday, 09th October 2020, 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM IST.
The Speakers
Mr Manuj Bajaj (Business growth strategist & marketing consultant) — A business growth strategist and marketing consultant who has authored about two dozen books and scores of articles; his writings have attained international repute and recognition in a number of countries of the world.
Dr Pavan Duggal (Advocate, Supreme Court of India) — Acknowledged as one of the top most lawyers in the world on cyber laws, he is empaneled as a consultant with UNCTAD & UNESCAP, and has the unique distinction of organizing and conducting training programs on cyber laws for the judges selected for the International Court of Justice, The Hague.
What this session covered
This session was a NISSMAT webinar, delivered to an international online audience, in which two invited speakers — a digital marketing consultant and a cyber law practitioner — each addressed the question of whether social media is a boon or a curse, followed by a moderated question-and-answer round. Opening remarks from the chair framed the dilemma: social media has collapsed political and geographical distance and become a genuine tool for collaboration, yet it spreads misinformation capable of affecting decision-making and democratic processes, and any policing of it must be reconciled with the constitutional freedom of expression — pointing instead towards self-restraint by the media fraternity and discernment by the public.
The first speaker surveyed harms at the individual level — cyberbullying and trolling among teenagers, distraction, and the emerging link between social media and suicidal behaviour, illustrated by cases including a young woman who live-streamed her own suicide after viewers mocked her account of abuse. He described research in which machine learning predicted a user's interests and political inclinations with high accuracy from the activity of only a handful of connected accounts, and connected such psychographic profiling to the Cambridge Analytica affair and coordinated influence operations around the 2016 United States presidential election. Personal data, he noted, is traded cheaply on the dark web; his conclusion was that there is no real privacy on social media and that deleting one's accounts is the only complete protection. He then turned to the business side, arguing that free pages, custom-audience tools and very low-budget targeted advertising on the major platforms allow even the smallest enterprise to generate leads locally, nationally and internationally.
The second speaker, approaching the subject as a cyber lawyer, treated social media as the world's most fertile ground for cyber crime: he cited a doctor in Kerala driven to suicide by a vicious online campaign, widespread misconceptions about the privacy of messaging platforms, a rise in online paedophilic activity during the lockdown, the convergence of social media with the dark net, malicious code laced into forwarded greeting messages, and litigation arising from recorded intimate content. He traced a worldwide regulatory turn — dedicated fake news laws in several countries, the use of cyber security legislation to reach social media, and a re-examination of intermediary liability in both the United States and India — while endorsing the view that genuine privacy requires staying off these platforms altogether. In discussion he argued that regulation is inevitable but must be minimal, enabling and respectful of free expression, with user awareness and cyber hygiene as the more practicable safeguard. Closing remarks touched on a then-prominent Indian death investigation and the media trial surrounding it, characterising the woman at its centre as more sinned against than sinning, and noted that a dedicated right-to-privacy law had yet to be enacted in India.
Key points raised
- Both invited speakers held that genuine privacy on social media is effectively unattainable; one advised that deleting accounts is the only complete protection, a position the other endorsed as ground reality.
- Individual harms examined included cyberbullying, trolling, distraction and links to suicidal behaviour, illustrated by cases including a live-streamed suicide.
- One speaker described research showing that a user's interests and political inclinations can be predicted from a small number of connected accounts, and linked such psychographic profiling to influence operations around the 2016 US presidential election and the Cambridge Analytica affair.
- The legal discussion traced a worldwide regulatory turn: fake news laws in several countries, cyber security legislation reaching social media, and a re-examination of platform intermediary liability in the United States and India.
- The business case was also made: low-cost, precisely targeted advertising on the major platforms allows even very small enterprises to generate leads domestically and internationally.
- On regulation, the view offered in discussion was that it must be minimal and compatible with freedom of expression, with user education and cyber hygiene doing much of the practical work.
