Social Media under Fire! The Court Order & My Questions

It has been almost a month since I wrote my last post and many of you have written to me, asking me if I had relegated this endeavour to the bin just like many others. I haven’t.

I recently read the Court order related to the case against various Social Media Networks/Companies in India on Pluggd.in (The Court Order) and felt that the drab document contained some exciting and disturbing stuff. This news has been doing the rounds of almost every (English) newspaper and website in India.

So I decided to write a set of Questions which indirectly analyze the possible fallout related to this Court Order. I feel that this may be a watershed moment not only for how we communicate and use social media, but also for freedom of expression, national unity, publication, blogging etc

Its important to note here that this court order is not the final decision/judgement related to the matter but a ‘Summons Order’ dated 23 Dec 2011 which contains a list of the accused, the complaint and the complainants and reasons given by the judge on why the court feels that the case should be heard.

Just like the printing press and the telegraph in their time, new inventions/nascent fields are like the wild west, where for a long time when almost everything and anything goes due to lack of policy, rules and regulations. Indeed, regulation becomes necessary only when authorities know the contours, the effects, loopholes and the potential fallout from activities related to a particular space.

Social Media (in India) is the latest space being tackled by the government, courts, players and regulators. Hence it is but natural that we hear laws, decisions and orders (such as the one I am writing about) baffling.

Part of the problem lies with our new found generational ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) aka ‘Multi-Tasking’ ‘Trivia-Centered Learning’ etc, part of it with the way we consume media aka ‘Aaj Tak Syndrome’ (through headlines and/or sans meaningful analysis) and part of it is the fact that the overwhelming readership on the net is educated, urban, middle class with secular, idealistic and righteous opinions (I belong to this class).

 

The basic Info

The Judge – Shri Sudesh Kumar

Court – Patiala House, New Delhi

Date of Summons Order – 23 Dec 2011

Complainant – Vinay Rai (Senior Journalist and editor of weekly Urdu, Akbari)

Accused – Facebook India, Facebook, Google India, Orkut, Blogspot, Youtube, Google, Yahoo India, Yahoo, Microsoft (India), Microsoft, Exbii, Zombie Time, My Lot, Boardreader.com, IMC India, Shyni Blog and Topix.

 

The Analysis

1. The court order mentions harm to national unity, riots, inflammatory language, debasement of religions, danger to communal harmony, hatred etc as the among the litany of accusations against the Social Networks and Websites. While this may seem farfetched to many people, however one has to remember that just like pamphlets, newspapers, posters etc a facebook group/page created to incite violence may have the same/similar effect and purpose. Since there is a law to regulate other media, the question here is why should Social Media stay out of the purview? 

2. As per the court order, enough reasons and evidence has been provided to initiate a case against the accused (summons have been/will be provided to the heads of these organizations including some really big names). Putting in big names, ensures that the case gets the visibility that it should. Apart from the legal aspect, it makes great copy too. For various parties concerned, it makes sure that the average guy hears about this. But why include Microsoft? And Yahoo? Last time I checked they had no major play in the Social Media space. Why are they being dragged into this?

3. The accusation includes the fact that many or some of these social networks/websites have colluded and in fact promoted such activities to increase page views, accounts, hits etc and thereby revenues. This is especially troubling since not only is it ethically and morally wrong, it is also inviting Government (over)regulation and control over this medium. And one must not fail to mention the damage this does to the reputation of the fledging world of Social Media Startups. However, I beg to understand how they hope to prove in court that Social Networks have ‘Colluded’ to spread hate messages? Reposting material from one site to another is done by users. How does one create a formal or informal mechanism to co-operate between social networks aimed at increasing page views/hits through lewd, disgusting, anti-community and anti-national messages/pictures? I don’t for a second mean that the accused are beyond guilt. I just want to know how they worked together.

4. As per the complainant, the government has turned a blind eye towards this menace. Will the government now take concrete steps to take care of this? Will there be pan-chewing bureaucrats sitting in front of computers reading out my updates and pages? Will the local police station, with staff that hasn’t been trained on how to use a computer, be able to record an FIR? Or will there be another ‘Special Cell’ set up for this? What will they do? And if they can really control all this, then when can I open Google and expect to see the right map of Kashmir in India?

5. This court order may even lead to clarification on who legally owns the information/content created by you and me on Social Media. If the Social Networks don’t own it, then they can safely say that though they will try to clean up their sites, the legal fallout is not theirs to suffer. If they do own it, then they might as well sell the info which we put up on their sites. So who, as per our laws, owns this info? 

6. Where is the info/data/pages stored? On servers within India or outside. If it is outside then the courts have no jurisdiction over the data. In which case they will have to look at ways to prosecute erring individuals or a company subsidiary or just block the page/website all together. So who should get punished? The company which owns the servers, which leases the servers, which owns the social network, the user who originally posts content or the reposting individual?

7. Who will regulate what is national or anti-national? The Government? That will be scary because we have heard what Mr. Kapil Sibal proposes. Media outlets have been fighting government censure laws for decades. Do we as the middle class have any hope of fighting unjust laws against us, when we can’t even get the cops to register a stolen mobile phone? Will any casual comment against a Politician or Govt Employee seen as defamation and get punished?

8. Finally who discusses standards of morality? Me, You, The Government, The Neighbor… who? Yes, when it comes to disturbing national unity, communalism, ethnicity based hatred and other harassment based material, a line must be drawn. But along with that, the laws must also recognize the fact that this line may be re-drawn and misused? Or are we looking at a future with POTA type laws for Social Networks?

 

I would like to clarify that I am 100% for sound punishment against those who have created such content consciously or otherwise. Even if Eric Schmidt himself must spend some time in Tihar, I believe the guilty must be punished. What I do not stand for is the kind of laws that usually get thrust on 99.99% of law abiding citizens in such situations. Laws, which seek to do nothing more than collate information & control the general population. Because no matter how democratic we become, we can and should never lose the right to express our opinions.

Real Value & Competition – Not among Products but Environments

Today Facebook filed for a 5 Billion $ IPO. To put this number in perspective we must convert it into INR.

Rs. 24,500 Crores (49 Rs = 1 $).

Note:  In 2009-2010, Maharashtra emerged as the state with the Highest fiscal deficit among all states at Rs. 26,562 crore (Yes The Entire of Maharashtra) 

 

Understandably this has led to hoorahs, congratulations, amazement and…. disbelief.

Disbelief because many people, including some of the shrewdest investors, do not understand how the intrinsic value of a young Social Networking site can be valued at a 100 Billion Dollars. After all, with a little less that $4 Billion in revenues last year, its valuation is an unprecedented 25X of revenues. And for a company which is 8 years old and based primarily on the sale of online ads, itself a fast changing precarious commodity, this sounds like madness. 

And it may well be, unless we understand that a major shift has happened in our world over the last decade. Though only recently visible, it always existed in principle, since the evolution of a monetary system because of its predominance in technology and how it has enveloped our lives.

This shift is of Real Sustainable Value and Competition – From Products to Environments.

When we think about competition in a corporate or capitalistic sense, we see images of Coke Vs Pepsi, GM Vs Toyota, Rin Vs Wheel, Airtel Vs Vodafone etc (For ease of understanding I have clubbed Brands and Products as one)

This is because of a number of reasons – positioning of products, market size, penetration, brand connection, loyalty, advertising etc

99% of us, especially well bred, old paradigm educated, propaganda fed students of MBA, think of today’s consumer driven competitive landscape in this way. A vast battlefield of competing logos, brands, strategies, PR activities, taglines and consumer engagement.

But that 1% realises that the paradigm has shifted, in fact they realise that the real paradigm of interest is not to win battles at the battlefield… it is to ensure direct/indirect control of the battlefield itself.

 

No, this isn’t another version of the Blue Ocean Strategy or a treatise on how to control the market with brute force, monopolistic laws or just plain illegal stuff.

I want to show how certain organizations (like facebook) and investors, have gone beyond winning battles i.e. creating better products/services than your competitors, to controlling the battlefield i.e. controlling the environment in which products are created and compete.

 

Now before I tell you how and why, can you name a class/type of organization which makes the most amount of money in the world??

Think Hard.

The answers, surprisingly, isn’t energy, though it is certainly close. It’s called ‘Governments’.

Governments across the world make a ton of money using taxation, excise, customs, surcharges, trade payments, investments etc. And how do they do this? By making laws, controlling the police and the army, collecting taxes, providing security, developing infrastructure, declaring war or peace, developing international relations etc. Basically governments make revenue by controlling the overall environment of a country. Yes, Governments do run for-profit companies, but they constitute a small portion of total revenues.

The USA, understands this and hence profits from the commerce of crude Oil. Hence, it is susceptible to jitters from its relationships to Oil Exporting Countries. Its focus on securing and stabalizing sea routes, pipelines, countries and infrastructure for oil trade is partly explained by the fact that Oil is traded in Dollars in the world’s main futures exchanges – NYMEX (New York) and the ICE (Europe). Add to this the American companies which control the technology, resources, expertise, infrastructure, connections, distribution and delivery network. What you get is a Government-Corporate complex which controls the Crude Oil Industry in the world (The Environment) without having the oil reserves, even to service its own needs.

 

But what about Facebook? It is not even close to the kind of influence and power that is exhibited by the above 2 examples. 

Well, Newsflash! It’s not just Facebook, but Google, Apple, Windows, X-Box, Salesforce, Amazon, eBay and many of the other New Age Big Boys, who were until recently scrappy startups, are all dealing in creating, maintaining, enhancing and controlling environments. They now exhibit similar influence and power in the environment they wish to control.

Facebook (FB) today controls a large chunk of a very well developed social networking environment. Today we see videos, pictures, ratings etc using the FB platform. Our networking, messages, connections, social planning is also done there. Already, millions are using FB to buy real and imaginary products, especially through social games. While the race for monetizing that fantastic data produced by FB has already begun (At the core of it, FB sells data and access to people willing to pay for it), new ventures based on FB, like selling credit cards using your profile info, insurance, offering product discounts and even selling Daal/Rice have proliferated. 

So what have they done? Facebook has created a rich environment where others can connect, profile, sell and expose their products/services to prospective customers. The real game changer here is the fact that they know enough details about you to let companies and brands target and approach you far better than previously possible. And since FB controls all the laws, rules, elements of this environment (somewhat) all it has to do, is to take care of it and take a cut from all those products fighting for market share. It is this ability that is being touted, in part, by Morgan Stanley, the lead banker for the IPO.

Google today knows and compiles most of your data online. What you searched for, how you used it, what’s happening on your gmail, what you posted on google+, which cat video was viewed on youtube, which book you searched for etc. And with the recent news of its new ‘simplified’ privacy policy, it is clear that Google is hell bent on tightening its own environment, which until recently was fairly fluid.  

The real game changer for Google is poised to be the Android OS which is currently being given out for free, simply because it promotes better and more precise search for smartphone users. Search still contributes 98% or so, of revenue to Google and it is competing head-on with Apple and now Microsoft.

All of them are fighting for control of the Smartphone OS environment simply because their reach in the market creates pressure on developers to pay them a cut, just to sell apps on those smartphones.

Amazon recently released the Kindle Fire, because it wanted to be part of the online/e-commerce environment through which it will be easier to sell since the purchase experience will be as frictionless as possible. It is notable that most analysts feel that the Kindle is being sold at either cost or lesser. Why? Because it lets Jeff Bezos control e-commerce.

 

Other notable examples like Ebay (Online marketplace and e-Commerce environment control), Windows (Desktop/Smartphone environment control), Xbox with kinect (Gaming platform, online interactive motion control environment), Apple (Hi-end Personal electronics environment control) show that the world of technology is fast moving towards a set of players who will soon control platforms or environments, in which we may be forced to operate in, simply because these platforms are established, provide access and moved in with a grand vision early on.

 

It will be some time before we can see an Indian Startup with the balls, resources and vision to control an entire environment. Only then can we truly say that we have ‘Arrived’.