india

Updated: Mar 02, 2019 22:44 IST

Terming social media a “powerful tool of technology” that could be used and misused, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said information was sometimes posted on it without verification. As an example, he cited the case of the Indian Air Force operation against a terror base in Pakistan’s Balakot on February 26.

“…Recently our air force in KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province in Pakistan] reached Balakot. Before anyone could get information, somebody started saying it is near the LoC [Line of Control]. Some, whom I call compulsive contrarians, found a new Balakot and did not check that the other Bala Kote is in Poonch. Why would our air force attack our own people? These are social media aberrations,” he said.

Jaitley was speaking at the book launch of Mann Ki Baat - A Social Revolution on Radio, a collection of 50 editions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat programme that is aired on public broadcaster All India Radio.

The remarks come ahead of general elections and against the backdrop of concerns about the possible influence the spread of fake news and biased and inflammatory content on social networks may have on the outcome of the polls.

Twitter, Facebook and Google have said they had put in place measures to check such content during the elections. They have also put in place norms for political advertising.

Even as he criticised the social media’s perceived tendency to set the agenda instead of report it, Jaitley said the time was ripe for the radio and the print medium to “strike back and regain their space”. The minister said PM Modi had recognised the reach of radio and chosen to communicate with the people through his radio programme.