Jagdeep Dhankhar today underlined the need to regulate the information highlighting that unregulated information and fake news can create havoc or disaster of un-imaginable proportion. “Information is power, information is too dangerous a power, information is that power which has to be regulated,” he said while interacting with a group of Indian Information Service officer trainees at the Vice President’s Enclave today.
Praising social media responses by state actors for effectively countering the manipulated and false information, VP asked the young officers to act with lightning speed to neutralize misinformation. “You have to nip the fake news in the bud,” he told them.
Noting that such misinformation can be ruinous for an institution or an individual, Shri Dhankhar asked “who protects the individual if there is a fake narrative set afloat on social media about an individual?” Describing the officer trainees as information warriors, he asked them to play on the front foot and save the privacy and reputation of the affected person or institution.
Describing India as the most vibrant democracy in the world, VP said that legitimacy of a government depends on the amount of trust people have in it. “As IIS officers, you are enjoined and equipped to act as a bridge between citizens and their elected government,” he said.
Expressing concerns over the worrisome trend of floating of narratives to taint, tarnish, diminish, and demean our institutions by some “misguided souls”, VP called for neutralizing them at the earliest. “These sinister forces with pernicious agenda are operating in small number in the country and outside. You are the warriors,” he told the young officers.
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