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Will do everything to ensure that the Indian elections are safe! Those are the words coming from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Deposing before US lawmakers on the massive data breach, Zuckerberg took responsibility for FB’s failure to protect personal information of millions of its users, as he tried to quell the storm over misuse of personal data for political and business gains.
Facing a volley of questions from senators on the social networking giant’s data mining techniques, Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook failed in its duties to safeguard its patrons’ personal information from being misused to create social imbalance.
And the reverberations are already being felt back home.
The BJP lost no time to hit out at the Congress for its alleged links with Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm accused of misusing FB data to manipulate poll outcome.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has now sought an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi for hiring Cambridge Analytica.
The Congress has denied all charges and says the accusations against the party are nothing but a diversionary tactic by the Modi government, which is facing the flak for non-performance on several fronts.
On ET NOW’s India Development Debate, political party leaders and digital media experts discussed the fallout of Zuckerberg’s startling revelations and its impact on the Indian political enterprise.
Here are some key takeaways:
PANEL VIEWSANJAY JAINFORMER CHIEF PRODUCT MANAGER, UIDAITime for self-regulation is all past.
We are moving to a new world where laws govern privacy and India is ahead of the US and Europe in data privacy.
We are going to get even more stringent laws.
The problem is twofold.
Users had their data collected in a way they didn’t expect.
The data was then used in a way to manipulate elections.
KRISHNA SAGAR RAOSPOKESPERSON, BJPThe Congress is in a piquant situation, as the BJP stands vindicated now.
The vindication didn't come only from Wylie, who is a whistleblower, but from Mark Zuckerberg, who is the CEO of Facebook.
There is nothing wrong in data mining or data analytics; the issue here is misappropriation and misuse of data without seeking the permission of individuals.
AADIL SINGH BOPARAISPOKESPERSON, CONGRESSIt has become the modus operandi of the BJP to try and divert the attention whenever they are facing flak.
There were two individuals --Christopher Wylie and Paul Oliver -- who testified before the digital committee of the House of Commons.
Oliver said his firm worked for the BJP in 2012.
Wylie also posted a tweet confirming that they worked for a national political party during the 2012 UP polls.
If you join the dots it is quite clear that Cambridge Analytica was working for the BJP.
SAKET MODIFOUNDER, LUCIDEUSTECHRight regulation means regulation that is reasonable.
Regulation always works in the maker-checker concept because somebody who is being regulated cannot be the one who makes the rules.
As the CEO of Facebook Mark could not have done it and he said he is ready for regulation.
Now it is up to the US Congress or the Senate to bring tech experts and policy-makers together to draft a new set of regulations.
NIKHIL PAHWAFOUNDER, MEDIANAMA.COMThere is clearly a case of the processes failing.
You need guidelines; self-regulation doesn’t work anymore.
It is going to be a bit of struggle for us.
At least from the privacy perspective, we have specific laws on data collection.
Unfortunately, we don’t know what these data are used for.
Facebook has clearly failed.
