HYDERABAD: Surveillance is necessary, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Rajat Kumar while replying to a question about measures taken by the Election Commission (EC) to check social media misuse before elections.
Speaking to Express, he announced that the EC has tied up with a private software company to check social media misuse. Rajat Kumar said, “Talks are going on with the company which has been shortlisted on the basis of technical evaluation. If you try to search for a keyword in the software, it will scan through millions of websites and see what’s going on. “For example: You can give words in Urdu, Telugu and talk about things which might be in violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). We have learnt that these things generally happen on the last 48 hours before the election,” said Kumar adding that the measure would be soon taken up on an experimental basis.
When pointed out that the practice might amount to unnecessary surveillance, Kumar said, “If I don’t have a certain amount of surveillance, how do I detect that people are violating laws ? For example if I allow you to walk around freely without keeping a watch, and you stab somebody, how do I catch you ? We are not intruding. We are only searching on certain things which we feel are violated or malpractices.”
Acknowledging the complexity in tracking down social media misuse, the CEO said, “In the case of print or electronic media, we take action based on complaints. Even in the case of social media, we will take action if there are complaints. We will direct the police to track down the crime.”
Other than that, the CEO has been using social media as a promotional platform to disseminate information and train voters.”There is a promotional aspect to social media. We reach out to people, try to tell them to do their duties, invite them to vote,” he said adding that the Telangana CEO Facebook page has generated 1 lakh likes.