Fifth Pillar of Democracy: Social Networks !!!

When any civil structure gets dilapidated support needs to be given to the same to keep it stable. It is said that our democracy is founded on three pillars of Legislature, Judiciary and Executive however when we felt that three pillars are not sufficient to make the structure strong we provided support of the fourth pillar i.e. Press (Print & Electronic) It was expected out of this fourth estate to stay vigilant and question the wrong doings of the remaining three pillars. Now it seems that our weakening democracy is going to need another pillar to support itself, A fifth pillar now which is known as Social Networks.

Recently there was a CD Scandal about the noted politician of one of the national political parties. A fresh debate is kindled about the Social Networks and there role in public life. The concerned Politico managed to shove the entire issue under the carpet by settling the private suite with the accused. As he was influential and poster boy of electronic media all of them colluded to suppress the matter however thanks to our recently evolved Fifth Estate who strongly and fierecely fought this battle from their desktops, Laptops, Smart Phones and campaigned day and night to create so much of noise on the world wide web that electronic as well as print media has to take cognizance of the situation. I am not saying still that they have given justice to this controversy (Which I seriously doubt whether they will do) however media was forced by the public will to discuss this on open forum. As usual the matter is not least discussed on media as they want to divert people's attention somewhere else (The referred Politico must be thanking the Ex Swedish Chief for butting in at the right time to claim the TRP)

This incident gave rise to an important debate about the censorship of Social Media. Recently Justice Markandeya Katju, Chairman of Press Council of India have hinted that govt. may take steps to censor the social media for obscene content about politicos or the high fliers of the society and this is going to be very interesting and important debate. I am not for any obscene content and I also feel that every person has a right to privacy however when it comes to the public servant even his private life needs to be beyond doubt. There should not be an iota of suspicion circling around him that he is using his public office to offer favors in lieu of different type (!) of currency.

If the politico is so sure that he is clean and have not done anything wrong (As per the released statement) then why he wants to shy away from the public scrutiny. If somebody is taking undue advantage of his clout to blackmail him in such case its also a criminal offense and shouldn't have been settled in the private suite but the person responsible should have been prosecuted under the relevant sections of the CRPC.

Finally the debate about the censorship of social media. Earlier people use to have very limited access to information and the sources of information could be controlled and curated. In the absence of Internet one person could connect with only limited set of people at a time and it use to take months and years to spread the fire. Now with the latest technology available on the fingertips news can become viral in a moment and can start trending on Twitter, Facebook updates or on You Tube. The technology here is playing a level field with the contemparary sources of media like print and electronic formats. It is easier to curb or censor when you have few sources to plug however how you could do that with millions and millions of citizen journalists (Social Media Users) contributing to the spreading the news. In this case efforts were made to block the Video clip making rounds on You Tube and Facebook however when one hole was filled the clip use to emerge from thousand more users. (I remember a very famous book I read in the past titled 'The Starfish & The Spider by Ori Brafman & Rod Beckstorm wherein they have proved that it is difficult to take on the Social Network kind of leaderless movements) They proved it by giving case studies of the war of Music Companies with Napster, The Spanish Army and Apache fight and the case of torrents (P2P sharing of content) Even the latest case of Wikileaks is also a very strong example of how Internet can easily and smartly evade all the legal barriers. (US and other governments affected by the leaks were banning and crashing the servers and websites where Julian Assange was hosting his portal but everyday Wikileaks was coming up again without any problem with hundreds of remote servers.

Internet and Social Media has empowered people and we have seen the effects of that in recent public uprising in Gulf countries. The spread of Anna Movement (India Against Corruption campaign for Lokpal) couldn't have been possible minus the role of the Social Media in spreading the word.

Concluding the post I feel that people are empowered now they can spread the word quickly by using the internet. No body can control the authenticity of the content and it may also become mass hysteria however in this case people who are using social media are literate, well educated and well informed they will know what to believe and what is crap. If the information circulated is contrary to the truth, the latter will definitely prevail as any piece of information will be looked in the light of reality. People by using this power can,may and should force press and government to conduct a probe in the matter to clarify things and in many cases such public pressure have resulted in fresh enquiries in the case of crime before as well.

I will humbly request Hon. Chairman Press Council of India and related authorities not to jump the gun on social media as this will provide fuel to another larger debate of right of expression. Finally the Fifth Estate has arrived to keep constant vigil on all the remaining four estates !!!!!

Awaiting your comments !!