The Central government’s new “regulatory rules” aimed at regulating tech giants like Facebook, Whatsapp, and Twitter have sparked outrage among social media companies. Such regulations have been challenged in court by companies like WhatsApp.
In an interview with Hindu Tamil, Sridhar Vembu, the founder of ‘ZOHO’ and a member of the National Security Advisory Council, discussed issues such as the new “regulatory rules” for social media, the closure of schools, colleges, and industries for more than a year due to COVID, and a drastic change in the work culture of IT industries.
In response to a question about privacy being impacted by the Central government’s ‘new regulations’ for social media, Sridhar Vembhu stated,” Last year, When someone tweeted that the corona virus had leaked from China’s Wuhan lab, Twitter immediately deleted the tweets. However, evidence is beginning to emerge that the corona virus did not originate naturally, but rather was created in a lab and then spread outdoors. If so, on what basis did Twitter delete such posts last year? Who gave those companies the power to decide what people should and should not say? Whether one likes Trump or not is a different issue. he got 47 percent of the votes. However, his account has been disabled by Twitter and Facebook. Thus it makes no sense to say that institutions with a dictatorial tendency protect the freedom of speech of the people.”
He went on to say that unlike social media companies, which are not responsible for their actions, the government has a responsibility to its citizens and that the government may set reasonable restrictions on those firms.
People have the right to dissent when the government makes a mistake, he continued, and unlike social media giants, which are totally dictatorial and operate indiscriminately, an elected government cannot go beyond a certain point to quiet those who speak out against it.
He mentioned the case of Apple vs. FBI, which occurred in the United States a few years ago, in which Apple refused to share information about a suspect citing user privacy protection, and that he emphasized how large tech companies undermine national security and sovereignty.
He added, “We need to understand another thing. It’s been 28 years since the Internet was introduced, and its use is growing exponentially. So far, no legal framework has been developed for Internet use. Now that the Internet has become an essential one, definite rules regarding it are needed. The journey to that is now underway.”
He discussed the possibilities for Indian-based apps like Koo to expand to other countries in the future, as well as the possibility of an innovation in the future to connect Koo and Twitter through a bridge, similar to how we mail between Yahoo and Gmail.
Sridhar Vembu, in reaction to the issue of some Tech companies having monopolies in the market, stated,” Big companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon are completely capturing the social media markets. All countries are beginning to realize that if this trend continues it will pose a great danger and are considering measures to curb the authoritarian tendencies of these companies. At the same time, the world is now moving in the opposite direction of de-globalization and the countries are moving towards a self-sufficient economy. In that sense, it is possible to create new standards based on Internet usage. Currently, this situation can only be addressed through new quality standards.”
He explained that the COVID period enabled ZOHO to make organizational adjustments, such as opening offices in small and marginal towns and rural areas like Tirunelveli, Srivilliputhur, and Madurai, and making it a standard to come to work just a few days a week.
He expressed his reservations about competitive exams like NEET, JEE, and others by saying,” the closure of schools and colleges during this one-year period will have no impact on student’s learning. I am against not only NEET, but all competitive exams. Competitive selection is not the right way to measure proficiency. In that sense, the cancellation of the exams is no big deal. We are in a situation where we need to change our education system as a whole.”
He concluded by saying that we have not fully utilized the abilities of rural people and that we need to focus on doing so, which ZOHO is doing.
(with inputs from Hindu Tamil)
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