Govt snubs WhatsApp's no, wants it to trace origin of fake news messages

Amid a spate of mob lynchings fuelled by misinformation, tracing the origin of fake messages has become a lingering tussle between the government and WhatsApp

It’s back to square one on the WhatsApp issue. 

In a statement on Thursday, the California-based messaging platform said: “Requiring traceability would undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of WhatsApp, creating the potential for serious misuse.” The firm would not weaken its privacy protections as people rely on WhatsApp for sensitive conversations, including with their doctors and banks, spokesperson Carl Woog said. 

Reacting, the government reiterated the company should step up its act in tracing the origin of fake texts — a subject of dispute between the two sides for long. “WhatsApp should give a more firm assurance of compliance with Indian laws. It should establish a grievance office with wide network and set up an Indian corporate entity, subject to Indian laws, in a defined timeframe,” a source from the information technology (IT) ministry said. 

Two days ago, things looked settled after WhatsApp Chief Executive Officer Chris Daniels met IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in New Delhi to discuss ways to prevent the spread of fake messages. After the interaction, the minister had briefed the media, saying WhatsApp would try to work out a solution. Daniels and his team had refused to comment on the decisions taken at the meeting. 

“WhatsApp should continue to explore technical innovations, whereby in case of large-scale circulation of provocative and nefarious messages leading to crime, the origin can be ascertained,” the source quoted above said on Thursday. 

WhatsApp has been in talks with the government over the past couple of months on the issue of mob lynching, allegedly caused by fake messages sent through its platform. Launch of its payment service, which has been stalled, has been another reason for its engagement with the government. The firm’s Chief Operating Officer Matthew Idema also met IT secretary Ajay Sawhney in July. 

WhatsApp had recently announced it would limit forwards to five chats in India and remove the quick forward option. It is also testing a label, which marks links sent on chats as ‘suspicious’. 

In a related development, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on Thursday the government had taken a stern view of false news doing the rounds on social media platforms, and asked WhatsApp to take urgent measures to stem them. She, however, said: “We cannot go around blocking the whole platform. The idea is to come up with an effective grievance redressal… targeted prevention or corrective action to be taken in those kinds of cases.” The department of telecommunications recently sought views from the industry regarding banning Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc, in situations where national security and public order were under threat. 

Prasad had informed Parliament last month the government would consider changes in rules that would require social media platforms to locate their grievance officers in India.

Meanwhile, Daniels met Telangana IT minister K T Rama Rao in Hyderabad on Thursday. While the purpose of his visit was not shared by the company, Rao’s office informed that the minister had pitched the case of the city for setting up of WhatsApp’s upcoming customer service operations centre. Facebook, which owns the messaging service, already has its India development centre in Hyderabad. According to the minister’s office Shivnath Thukral, Facebook’s head of public policy division, was also present at the meeting.

(With input from Dasarath Reddy)