In 2019 elections, Google and Facebook have great power, greater responsibility | The Indian Express

In 2019 elections, Google and Facebook have great power, greater responsibility | The Indian Express

Written by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen |Updated: March 25, 2019 7:14:40 am

The writer is director of Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and professor of political communication, University of Oxford

In 2019 elections, Google and Facebook have great power, greater responsibility

Owning, operating, and profiting from the algorithms that more and more Indians rely on to find news, gives Google and Facebook great power and great responsibilities — like the human editors who came before them. The 2019 elections will be a decisive test of whether they are ready for it.

Not only do our respondents rely on search and social media for news, they also say they trust the news that they get there at least as much as news more broadly. (Image source: Bloomberg)

Are Google and Facebook the most powerful editors in India? Given that an estimated quarter billion Indians have gone online since the last general election, they just might be.