In the National Conference of the Election Commission in New Delhi, important guidelines were given to media officials regarding fake news, deepfakes, social media management and election communication.
Raipur. Election Commission of India organized the second one-day National Conference for Media and Communication Officers at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM), New Delhi. More than 260 participants including media nodal officers, social media nodal officers, district public relations officers and senior officials of state public relations departments from various districts of 16 states and union territories of the country participated in this conference organized on July 3.
On behalf of Chhattisgarh, Assistant Chief Electoral Officer, Additional Director of Public Relations Department and District Public Relations Officers of all 33 districts of the state also participated in the conference.
The functioning of the Election Commission is completely in accordance with the Constitution and law.
Addressing the conference, Chief Election Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar said that every process of the Election Commission of India is conducted as per the Constitution, election related laws and transparent guidelines issued by the Commission from time to time. He said that the authorities need to remain constantly alert against the rapidly spreading misleading and fake information on social media. Effective control of misinformation can be achieved by timely dissemination of correct and factual information. He also said that the record voting percentage recorded in the recently held assembly elections shows the strong faith of the country’s voters in the electoral system.
Special emphasis on tackling AI, Deepfake and digital misleading content
Election Commissioner Dr. Vivek Joshi mentioned the new challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), deepfake technology and misleading digital content in the digital age. He appealed to the officers to effectively face these challenges by following the guidelines of the Commission. He also highlighted the role of electoral literacy clubs and said that it is necessary to connect more and more young voters with the democratic process through them.
Technical sessions on election process and media management
During the conference, detailed technical and practical sessions were organized on topics related to various stages of the election process. These included important topics like communication strategy, voter list management, voting process, vote counting system, ECINet, constitutional and legal provisions, media management, press release writing, effective use of social media and management of misinformation.
Practical training and experiences of states shared
The participants were divided into groups and a practical demonstration of the election process was also conducted. Along with this he visited the exhibition and media corner. Officials from states that recently conducted elections shared their experiences related to election management and mass communication. During this, best practices for effective communication were also discussed in detail.
Conference concludes with question and answer session
At the end of the program a question and answer session was held between the participants and senior officials of the Election Commission of India. In this, the curiosities of the participants were addressed on various topics related to election process, media coordination, information management and effective communication. The conference concluded with a resolution to make the election communication system more strong and transparent.