So they can. Write any. Exodus starts. On t. W. On the. General election. The truth. Welcome. Its good to have you with us today the second phase of forming in a month long general elections voters are going to the polls to elect a new parliament. Has been seeking a second has been the Opposition Congress party. The election is the worlds biggest with nine hundred. In total eligible to vote. Five hundred forty three representatives to the house of parliament called the. India is one of the biggest markets for social Media Companies like facebook and whatsapp these platforms additional campaigning ground. To the state of karnataka to meet a candidate hoping social media can be history to
a seat in parliament. I think were probably going to. Be there to see just recently hes about to go into the south indian city of bengal to sample your you and an aspiring Member Of Parliament for joining us but of particular that there were people at twenty eight hes the youngest candidates from the ru
country so what is interesting critique is that although there has been increased accessibility of social media content across india it isn t necessarily a good thing. yes it is not necessarily a good thing because you know india you know social media propaganda works differently in different countries india is a country which has gone through partition which has certain you know sort of certain biases in the people at the right and this you know and what happens is that in the last four or five years there s been a lot of polarization religious polarization political polarization and this is the this is ideal for people who put out this information because it is when people are more in want to kill its political issues that they tend to fall more on this information and that is what is happening you know there s a lot of misinformation which targets minorities and which which travels very fast across all the social media mediums and briefly for think if you have any steps
as the civil society groups worry about the uncritical consumption of online propaganda by new internet users was the question of the election commission is doing enough specially to prevent political parties from misusing social media. forms such as facebook which offer a high degree of customization to their advertisers which are political parties of the personal information off with users in actually reaching them so what you have is the perfect delivery mechanism for political messaging in india which makes it incredibly powerful. but social media can also be problematic they just really has been criticised for all tweets opposing reservations for women and supporting the b j p s hindu nationalist agenda he has even want to gag order on the media to prevent reporting on what he called stephanie tree allegations. but now
a group of friends and supporters is hard at work to boost his online image. the content is kept young and peppy to resonate with the just response on political cartoons like these in addition help directly establish prime minister narendra modi s support for the young candidate. fortunately did he must also ensure ethical content that follows official guidelines. social media is it a belief or did what with we are really not in control of what happens online itself it was for use a bit of what they were goes online from this music on that we can go. supporters to exuberance to be what it about privacy and picnics. but it is what happens online that may well decide this election. and one man who has been watching this online space for some time is pretty he s co-founder and editor of