World’s most popular and widely used messenger app: Whatsapp is facing a bad situation in India.
As per IndiaTimes reports, Whatsapp can be banned in India.
What is the real reason? Find out the truth right here!
Govt. Of India Can Ban Whatsapp?
Whatsapp has been ordered twice by Indian Govt. to develop a technology which can trace the origin of a message.
Till now, Whatsapp has told the Govt. that they cannot develop such technology, because it will mean breaking their end-to-end encryption policy which safeguards data privacy.
Now, as per some reports coming in, Govt. is all set to send its 3rd letter to Whatsapp, again ordering them to create tracking technology.
In case Whatsapp is not able to create such a technology, they can expect stern action against them, which includes a possibility of a ban.
An unnamed Govt. official said, “It’s a reasonable demand from us, and very much doable. The third letter will reiterate that WhatsApp is not meeting all our concerns,”
Can Whatsapp Create Such Technology?
As per some security and data experts, the task is certainly doable.
Sunil Abraham, executive director of Center of Internet and Society has said that Whatsapp is not required to store every message, but a creation of meta-data can be done, which can track the date, time, location and account name of the person who created any message.
The unnamed Govt. official said that they are not asking Whatsapp to set up a massive data center to store billions of messages, but track and trace only those mischievous messages which trigger mass-panic.
In the past, as we reported, fake news and fake messages spread fast on Whatsapp, and such is the effect that people are getting killed due to the same.
IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had earlier stated, “(WhatsApp) needs to find solutions to deal with sinister developments like mob lynching and revenge porn and has to follow Indian law,”
Whatsapp Is Responsible For Mob Lynching?
As per an opinion published in an ‘Independent Media’ portal, Whatsapp should be held responsible for mob lynching, and mass killing of people in India.
However, no solid theory or evidence was shared as to why only Whatsapp needs to be blamed. Whatsapp is a platform, and as per its terms of usage, they are not responsible for the messages which are shared in their platform.
None the less, Whatsapp has taken some solid steps to curb the menace of fake news and fake stories.
For instance, Whatsapp users in India can no longer forward more than 5 chats to their friends; all forwarded messages are now labelled, there is a spam detection tool and cash prize of thousands of dollars for any social scientist who can find ways to stop fake news.
But, as they say, information is just like water, and there exists no power to stop its flow.
Do you think that Whatsapp should be banned by India? Or there can be any other alternate solution as well? Do let us know by commenting right here!