Govt exploring partnership with Meta on cyber safety: Priyank Kharge

Bengaluru: Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge said on Saturday that the state government is exploring a partnership with social media giant Meta on cyber safety, especially with respect to women and child safety.

Addressing the Digital Suraksha Summit here, Kharge said that India is witnessing rapid digital adoption. This further creates a need for users to be provided with easy-to-access tools and resources to safeguard their wellbeing online.

The government of Karnataka is committed to working with various stakeholders and experts to create an enabling and inclusive digital environment. Later speaking to reporters, the minister said, "We are looking at exploring partnerships with Meta on digital and cyber safety, especially with respect to women and child safety. We are also trying to see how we can prevent youngsters from falling prey to faulty loan apps.

" Over 60 people in India have lost their lives due to illegal apps with many unreported cases. "We have already taken action and shut down more than 8-10 illegal loan apps operating in Bengaluru," he said. He also highlighted the prevalence of illegal betting apps in tier II towns and rural areas, often in vernacular languages, posing a significant challenge for the government.

Earlier this year, Meta launched the Digital Suraksha Summit, building on its efforts to offer a safer and inclusive internet to everyone. It included a slew of measures on enabling digital education and literacy across youth well-being, child safety, tackling misinformation as well as the overall education of users towards various safety tools and resources available across Meta platforms.

Sandhya Devanathan, vice president, Meta in India, said, "We are cognisant of the empowering role our apps are playing in the country - giving voice to millions of people, especially women and youth. We work tirelessly to put in place the right policies, products, and precautions so people have a safe and positive experience online."

Over the past three years, Meta said it has launched more than 30 safety tools and features to promote online safety. Since a large percentage of online users today are teens, Meta has rolled out a series of initiatives and tools as part of its Youth Wellbeing efforts. These include features like ‘Quiet Mode' on Instagram, which help give teen users more control over the time spent on the app and what they see.

Further, other recent features include Parental Supervision Tools and a Family Centre to help parents get more involved in their teen's experiences on Instagram. While the Parental Supervision Tools allow parents of young users to manage the time on Instagram, the Family Centre includes an education hub. Similar tools have been introduced on Messenger, so parents can see how teens spend their time and who they interact with on Messenger. Meta has also introduced new tools to limit unwanted interactions in Instagram DM and Messenger and nudging teens to set time limits on Facebook.

Other features of Facebook include resources for child and women's safety that can be found in the Safety Centre. These are designed to support parents, caregivers and educators with policies, resources and tools to support the safety and well-being of youth online, as well as provide access to host all the safety resources women would need when navigating the platform. Both resources are available in Kannada and 10 other Indian languages.