What could be an unique exercise for the state of Manipur, administrators of around 140 groups & pages operating on Apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Youtube participated in an interactive session with the State Chief Minister that lasted around two and half hours.

Chief Secretary and DGP, Editors of various print and electronic media houses also attended the session, today’s interactive session was first of its kind in the State’s history that woke up to the changing ecosystem recognising the rising influence of social media in the society.

While Chief Minister Biren appreciated the contribution of social media groups/pages in maintaining communal harmony, promoting national integration and freedom of expression. However, he also expressed concern over the unregulated use of social media for spreading hate posts, unverified and fake news.

Contact details of cyber crime unit were also circulated to the participants to enable timely reporting cyber crime. Various provisions of Information Technology Act, 2000 and relevant sections of IPC were briefed by the Cyber Crime Unit of Manipur Police.

Chief Minister asserted that administrators of social media groups/pages need to keep strict vigil of the posts uploaded by group members because even a slight misrepresentation of facts may sometimes create huge communal flare-ups.

During the interactive session, regulation of posts and promotion of events, personality, thoughts and beliefs on social media was thoroughly discussed. The participants commonly opined that there is a need to regulate social media with a view to weed out posts with malicious intent and anti-national tones.

Interacting in the session the participants also raised matters like need for self-regulation, registration with a registering authority, restriction to a single administrator for a group to ensure accountability, etc. It was also suggested that schools, colleges and educational institutes should be mobile-free zone. It was decided that the State Government would explore scope for intervening into issues concerning existence of multiple groups with the same group name. Some participants suggested that keeping unique group names would reduce confusion amongst public. The need to verify fake accounts was stressed upon, apart from pointing out that members of a group should understand the aim and objective of the group while posting updates and information.