David Bridges
Social media in India is controlled by American companies, who devise the algorithms and thus call the shots on who is barred and who is upvoted on these mass platforms, highlighted Rajiv Malhotra, Author of ‘Snakes In The Ganga: Breaking India 2.0’ and founder, Infinity Foundation, while talking to Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief, Republic Network on ‘Nation Wants To Know’.
Putting his viewpoint forward on the huge amount of influence wielded by social media companies over the mind of their users, Malhotra even went to the extent of flagging the possibility of their potential to ‘change the results’ in the 2024 general elections in India. “You can keep saying that we control our destiny but I will tell you, Americans control the algorithms and their Artificial Intelligence (AI) and algorithms are running a large part of Indian social media. A large part of Indian society is influenced by them. So, don’t be surprised if the 2024 elections, there is some kind of media influence from somewhere else.”
‘Google, Facebook dangerous for India’
Search engine and social media companies like Google, and Facebook can prove fatal for India, said Malhotra. “Companies like Google and Facebook are dangerous for India because they have all the data on India. They can manipulate your psychology. If they can make you buy the product that the advertiser wants, they can also make you religiously, politically and socially influenced” He added that these platforms can cause social disharmony creating conflicts between people, citing governments blocking social media during social unrest across the world: “Why do they block the social media when there is a riot, everyone in the world, they block it because they know social media incites people into extreme forms of behaviour.”
India has a big risk on its hands by giving up control of social media to other people, said Malhotra, also suggesting a strategy for one of the biggest Indian telecom companies wherein they should have built platforms on their own rather than partnering with foreign companies. He also further gave the example of how China blocked American companies to build indigenous platforms.
IMAGE: Republic World
Maya Kensington
Clara Hastings
