Social Media Platforms have taken laudable initiatives during COVID-19 Crisis: IAMAI

The Internet and Mobile Association of India has stated that its member social media platforms have undertaken numerous initiatives at times of the crisis which needs to be acknowledged.

The association has communicated to the Ministry of Information and Technology and Ministry of Home Affairs with details of measures taken by its member social media platforms over misinformation during present times of crisis.

According to IAMAI, all its members have taken proactive initiatives on their own at a global level and also at country-specific levels, which includes special services for India.

The different platforms have taken independent initiatives as per scope and capacity depending on the type of service offered, the medium of interactions, etc. There are two broad themes under which the wide range of activities can be classified:

Dissemination of Critical Information for Users: All platforms adopted special mechanisms to communicate critical information, to-dos, notifications, and precautions as suggested by proper authorities to their users.

This involved the platforms actively associating with Ministries, Departments, and various national or international agencies working to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis.

Restricting misinformation: During the present period of crisis and insecurities, the platforms have taken extra caution to enable users to make more informed choices on the kind of information available to them.

This includes collaboration with fact-checking partners, making official sources of information easily accessible, reducing discoverability of problematic content and public awareness campaigns, and more.

All the member social media platforms are actively promoting social distancing on their platforms, promoting news from official sources on their searches have dedicated channels/tags, etc. as applicable for COVID-19 related queries along with vlogs/ content from experts on the matter.

All platforms are also actively deploying fact-checking mechanisms to identify misinformation and dubious advertisements/promotions related to COVID-19.

The association also highlighted that many Governmental Departments and Authorities are actively using many of these social media platforms for their own outreach initiatives and all platforms are actively cooperating with authorities to help reach out to the masses via their platforms at such times of lockdown.

Social Media is playing a critical role during the present state of lockdown and has proven itself to be a useful tool for mitigation of the crisis for both officials and individual users. IAMAI expressed hope that the positive role being played by the platforms will be given due recognition by the authorities.