As election fever catches up in Karnataka, WhatsApp group admins are sending out disclaimer messages to group members to be cautious in sending unnecessary political forwards and requesting them not to put political messages in the groups.
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Ubiquitous during elections and otherwise, reigning in unverified advertisements, photographs, hate speeches, and fake news on the platform has been a challenge for a long time. With conversations about politics heating up as the elections near, many admins, tired of political arguments and messages, are putting up restrictions on such chats and coming up with an unwritten code of conduct for groups.
One such message in Kannada on a WhatsApp group reads, “Since there is a model code of conduct in the State due to the elections, political debates, chats, fake news on politicians or political parties are not entertained in this group and members have to restrict putting up such messages in the group and the admins are not responsible for any such messages.”
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Mohan D. on Bengaluru, an admin for a WhatsApp group, has also requested participants to restrict any politically motivated and misleading messages. “Before elections were announced, there were a few fake and propaganda-based political messages being circulated in the groups. But after the election date was announced, we are seeing a lot of such messages, which not only create fake propaganda but also lead to unnecessary political debates. Then we thought of warning the group members to avoid such messages.”
Praveen Raj, another admin, shared his experience on how such political messages are harming their real-life relationships. “From the last seven years, our group of friends were on a WhatsApp group. Initially, political debates and jokes were welcome, but later, there were political debates and fake political messages, which led to chat fights between members and many of them lost friendships due to such unwarranted political debates. Now, as elections are coming up, we have decided to put up a disclaimer to avoid political debates and messages,” Mr. Raj added.
WhatsApp, a major tool for political parties
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WhatsApp is also a big tool for political campaigning.
A volunteer in a social media team of a major political party said, “WhatsApp is one of the major social media platforms to push political campaigns as not just youngsters, but even senior citizens use WhatsApp. So the reach is more. WhatsApp access and engagement time is far more than other social media platforms. We have more than 2,000 WhatsApp groups and are targeting to reach over 5,000.”
EC monitoring
Meanwhile, the Election Commission is monitoring political advertisements on social media and also fake news. All political advertisements on social media will require pre-certification from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committees (MCMCs) at the district and State levels.
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Provisions of the model code of conduct will also apply to the content being posted on social media by candidates and political parties. Any violation can lead to action by the Election Commission.
On Thursday, the Election Officer of Madikeri Assembly constituency issued a show-cause notice to one of the WhatsApp group admins for allegedly circulating a politically motivated video clip on groups. The incident happened in Kushalnagar in Kodagu.
The commission has appointed Social Media Nodal Officers for escalation of violation of the MCC or any other commission’s instructions/provisions of the law and court’s orders in matters related to the election on social media platforms during elections. “Digital advertising should be pre-certified by the MCMCs at the district and State levels,” Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka Manoj Kumar Meena said.