New Delhi: Social media is a "revolutionary" medium of communication that has reached the hands of the common man, and the need of the hour is to adopt it and devise ways to deal with those who misuse it rather than taking an aggressive stand, Union Minister Manish Tewari said on Thursday.
At a panel discussion organised by a news channel here, Tewari said there was a need to find a remedy for those who were affected by the negative use of social media.
"It (social media) can be used for constructive purposes or for harmful activities like you saw recently in Bengaluru and Chennai," the I&B Minister said, referring to the use of social media to spread rumours which led to insecurity among people from Northeast.
"This is a very revolutionary medium of communication which has reached the hands of the common man and we should not fight or quarrel with it but adopt it and think about how to deal with those who use it for wrong activities," he said.
Author Chetan Bhagat contended that it was not necessary that there should be a legal remedy for every problem. He said it was not technically possible to regulate social media.
"In our country everyone who has power abuses it. Now this small power has reached the hands of the youth, do you want to take it away (by regulation). It is a matter of concern even if it is being considered," he said.
Responding to Bhagat, Tewari said there was a difference between regulation and remedy.
"Regulation means you are trying to control something and here I agree that the manner in which science has grown and techniques developed, you don`t have the instruments to regulate even if you want to control social media. The government has also never wanted to control it," Tewari said.
Tewari said the question was whether to leave social media completely free or whether to construct a mechanism where remedies were present in the system.
PTI
