Daijiworld Media Network - Sullia (MS)

Sullia, Mar 13: The Election Code of Conduct (ECC) announced by the Election Commission of India is applicable to social networking sites also. The WhatsApp group admins have started to protect themselves from any mishap that would be created by the members of their group.

The group admins have opted for the protection tool in the WhatsApp group setting and have activated the 'Only Admin Can Send Messages' option. Now only the admins of the group can share any message that is posted in their group by any member. This is the self-defense option that the group admins are adopting to prevent themselves from getting entangled into any sort of legal issues that may arise out of the irresponsible behaviour of their group members.

The Election commission has said that it is going to keep a strict vigilance on the social media including WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Google Share, Chat etc. The rules and regulations that are announced by the elections commission with regards to the campaigning by the candidates of political parties are applicable to social media also. If any campaigning is being carried out on social media in favour of a particular candidate, then they will be directly responsible for the same. The expenses incurred for such online campaigning is also added to the cost of the election expenditure of the said candidate.

If the candidate denies having any knowledge of campaigning on social media, then the group admins and members who have shared or posted the information become the culprits. So it is not right on the part of the commoners to campaign in favour of a particular candidate without his or her knowledge. Due to this background the group admins are sending the message saying 'Election Code of Conduct is in action' to their members and preventing them from sharing message from the group.

In the group setting option of 'Only Admins can send Messages', except the group admin, no one else can share the message posted in the group.