The people who spread fake news on any kind of platform should be penalized, whatsaap is one of those platforms. I remember when I was in college, we heard fake news that Atal ji has expired and colleges have announced a holiday which was done by some mischievous students to avoid an exam. Only penalties can refrain such people to post such fake news.

The recent lynching and mob incidents were promoted on WhatsApp platform.

I hope government takes it seriously this time and WhatsApp is made to follow the rules and laws of the land. Their payment app/ platform does not abide by the RBI regulations in our country.

Whatsapp has already taken one action that is to curb forwarding of message to more than 5 groups simultaneously & to display the forwarded message before the message to stop fake news.

I believe whatsapp will take some more concrete actions such as setting up of office as mentioned in the Article & co operate with the government to avoid negative instances of events from happening.

Whatsapp is a widely used app in India without doubt and to ban it may not be a good move. There could be other apps being used in place of Whatsapp, but that would not guarantee that fake news will be eliminated. Extra steps need to be taken to ensure incorrect messages are deleted automatically upon sending them to others.

Sheetal Kumar N wrote:

Whatsapp is a widely used app in India without doubt and to ban it may not be a good move. There could be other apps being used in place of Whatsapp, but that would not guarantee that fake news will be eliminated. Extra steps need to be taken to ensure incorrect messages are deleted automatically upon sending them to others.

It will not be a welcome step to ban it but WhatsApp has to go by the law of land. Especially it can not launch it's payment app which does not follow RBI guidelines and so can't run in this country.

Arunima Singh wrote:

Sheetal Kumar N wrote:

Whatsapp is a widely used app in India without doubt and to ban it may not be a good move. There could be other apps being used in place of Whatsapp, but that would not guarantee that fake news will be eliminated. Extra steps need to be taken to ensure incorrect messages are deleted automatically upon sending them to others.

It will not be a welcome step to ban it but WhatsApp has to go by the law of land. Especially it can not launch it's payment app which does not follow RBI guidelines and so can't run in this country.

It is impossible to ban application such as whatsapp in India which is used by millions of people. In India even if small changes to law are made there are protests and strikes throughout the country. I am sure government will not give any such chance to opposition to create ruckus, considering that we have general elections next year.

Sheetal Kumar N wrote:

Whatsapp is a widely used app in India without doubt and to ban it may not be a good move. There could be other apps being used in place of Whatsapp, but that would not guarantee that fake news will be eliminated. Extra steps need to be taken to ensure incorrect messages are deleted automatically upon sending them to others.

Very relevant Point. Could not agree more. There will be other apps through which these fake news will be circulated, after all its people who are making fake news, if whatsapp is stopped, they will use another social medium. It is important to take more concrete steps & bring in more relevant & completely fool proof regulations to stop such fake news instead of thinking of stopping whatsapp.

Yes banning of it will not solve the issue and would only bring inconvenience to its users. Concrete steps have to be taken to curb the problem.

Other thing that we have to keep in mind is that not only in China, but there are other nations who have banned some or other social media platforms or brought them under scanner keeping national interest in mind.  But India is an exception with all politics and destructive opposition. 

However, the message to these social media platform should be clear that they can not take things for a ride.