The election period is often characterized by surge in fake and anonymous social media accounts. This time around, though, the election commission will treat it as a serious matter.
ECB says fake and anonymous accounts demeaning political parties and candidates with false, defamatory and malicious posts for political gains will be traced and taken to task.
A team from Facebook was in the country recently. They assured the ECB of their support in tracing people behind fake Facebook accounts.
“They assured they can help us trace people creating disharmony in the country under anonymity,” Sonam Tobgay, the Head of the Department of Elections, said.
“During the election this time, if people are found using fake accounts to spread false news and demeaning another person or a party, we can report it immediately to Facebook through DITT.”
The political parties welcomed the move, saying false and misleading information put out by such accounts undermines the conduct of free and fair elections.
Some of them, however, said other social media platforms should be monitored as well.
“If the authorities like ECB, DITT and BICMA can regulate and monitor social media exchanges, that will be very good,” Sonam Tobgay, the Vice President of BKP, said.
“But I’m not very sure if that can happen. As far as BKP is concerned, we are not interested in mudslinging. We are more interested in how best we can contribute towards the democratic process.”
“Of course we do support and welcome this move by the ECB, but why just Facebook? Why not other social media platforms like Wechat? Facebook, we feel, is mostly used by literate people who can analyze but WeChat is widely used by rural people,” Karma Dorji of DNT said.
“During elections, there are parties and candidates taking a dig at each other using fake accounts. They write or speak anything irrespective of whether there’s truth in it or not,” the General Secretary of DPT, Sangay Phurba, said.
“So, if the ECB can take care of such matters, especially during elections, because if it is not monitored, it can hamper the conduct of free and fair election.”
“When you have people in the social media with fake accounts attacking the leaders of political parties with political agenda, it creates a lot of problems and eventually, I think, in the future we may not even get good people to join politics because you’re getting defamed unnecessarily,” Sonam Jatso, the General Secretary of PDP, said.
“Somebody’s life can be destroyed. Somebody’s career and future can be destroyed. So, no good people will want to join politics in the long run,” Sonam Jatso added.
