Abu Dhabi, Nov. 15 (BNA): Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Shri Apoorva said that while there is a shift towards new media, credibility remains a point.
“This is the biggest challenge for the government, because we are a very large country,” Aparova said.
“We have 1.4 billion people, and when a problem occurs in one part of the country, disinformation leads to a number of issues. So, this is a challenge for the government and also for the media.”
When there is talk of traditional media, there is a lot of control, because the print media remains the most credible and there is a structure through which the media and the stories are conveyed, and whatever content comes through the editorial board, there is a lot to check before it goes to the print media , He said.
“It kind of happens and to a lesser extent in the TV media, which is still more interesting. Still interested in breaking news and giving that news,” he said.
“However, in social media, the new media, which is now circulating, the control is much less. Whatever people publish in the media, people get scared and mislead or start taking action based on fake news. This is a challenge. great for the government.
He said they look forward to discussions at the World Media Conference on how to address such challenges in other parts of the world.
“Because our country has come out with intermediate rules on some kind of self-regulatory mechanism about how we control these things, and we can share it with others,” he said.
“India is a big sized country, we have more than 1.2 billion mobile phone users, 600 million smartphone users, data cost in our country is very cheap, you get about $3 a month, you get 1.5 GB, 2 GB of data every day for free. So, the cost of data is so cheap that everyone on a smartphone spends a lot of time on some type of media, whether it be entertainment, news, or social media.All the time, people, especially young people, are on mobile. Watching movies in India will be three to four hours a day.”
The good point about social media, he said, is that information spreads very quickly, whether there’s an emergency — a flood, a hurricane, or something going on — then the information can be sent out to the entire public very quickly.
“Nowadays, if something happens in the country, the loss of life is less because the spread of information is very fast. But, as I mentioned, if there is big news it spreads very quickly and leads to issues of law and order. Sometimes it also leads to To the loss of life, so we must balance.”