(Image source from: asianetnews.com)

Election Commission has laid out clear guidelines with regards to use of social media by political parties and candidates in elections in the upcoming General Elections 2019.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said that Candidates are required to furnish details of their social media account at the time of filing of nominations.

It said that all political advertisement on Social Media will also require precertification from Media Certification & Monitoring Committees (MCMC).

According to the EC Guidelines, Political parties and Candidates have include all expenditure on campaigning, advertisement on social media in their election expenditure account.

It also includes payments made to internet companies and websites for carrying advertisements, expenditure on making creative content, salaries and wages paid to the team of workers employed to maintain their social media account during elections.

EC said that Model Code of Conduct (MCC) will also apply to the content being posted on social media by candidates and political parties.

Various Social Media platforms shall also remain under the close and stringent vigil of the Commission for any content aimed at vitiating the electoral process or designed to disturb peace, tranquility, social harmony and public order.

According to EC guidelines, “Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) to workout the details accordingly. With the input of Facebook, Twitter, Google, WhatsApp and Share Chat, IAMAI has already responded and confirmed its eagerness to cooperate with the ECI to uphold the integrity and legality of the political campaigns conducted on the platforms of the intermediaries.”

Intermediaries have already started awareness campaigns for their users highlighting the activities of the ECI and this will cover awareness campaigns regarding unlawful conduct during the election particularly, the prohibited period of 48 hours, under Section 126.

All the platforms have agreed to establish priority channels for the ECI for quick response and to appoint grievance officers for upcoming election.

EC ordered all platforms to deploy appropriate fact checkers which scan the fake news, abuse etc. Advertisements and pages are being made more transparent.

By deploying fact checkers. Each of these platforms has created a mechanism to accept only precertified political advertisements at the time  elections and will share the expenditure spent on this account with the elections authorities for the purposes of accounting.

By Sai Kumar