NEW DELHI: Social media giants Facebook Google and Twitter have joined hands with the Election Commission ahead of General Election 2019, volunteering to monitor all political advertisements and publicity material posted on their timelines during the poll campaign and block posts that peddle fake news or are defamatory/objectionable. The three companies, in their interactions with the EC over the past months, have also agreed to observe the 48-hour ‘silence period’ prior to polling and ensure that no political advertisements are put up on their websites during this time.Thirdly, all sponsored content in favour of a political party, political leader or candidate will flag the concerned sponsor and the amount paid by such sponsor for posting the content on Facebook, Whatsapp (owned by Facebook), Google or Twitter.The arrangement by the social media companies to screen and block negative political advertisements is completely voluntary, with Facebook, Twitter and Google having assured EC that they will self-censor political content on their websites to identify posts that are partisan so as to disturb the level-playing filed or involve negative campaigning, fake news, personal attacks and inflammatory content. The social media companies will voluntarily block objectionable publicity material and advertisements, even flag them to EC where necessary. While this will be the practice through 12 days of the 14-day campaigning window, political advertisements and posts will totally be prohibited during 48 hours prior to polling, in line with the ‘silence’ rule barring campaigning so that the voter can independently decide who to elect.Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat told TOI that use of social media by parties and candidates would be monitored by Facebook, Twitter and Google on their own. “EC’s interactions with the three social media companies are complete and they have agreed to monitor all political advertisements during the campaign. Facebook, Twitter, Google and Whatsapp will have posts that involve healthy campaigning while negative/personal campaigns or fake news will be blocked. The action shall be completely voluntary and not enforced by EC,” he said.Significantly, all sponsored political advertisements uploaded on Twitter, Facebook and Google timelines shall be declared by them as “sponsored”, along with name of the sponsor and amount paid for the advertisement. “In this way, there shall be complete transparency in political advertising on the social media,” said CEC Rawat.The understanding between EC and social media companies headquartered abroad reflects the eagerness on the latter’s part to be involved in India’s massive democratic exercise called elections, given that the country accounts for a large chunk of their subscribers.