Our paper on effective response strategies for Information Harms on Mobile Instant Messaging Services was published in an edited Springer volume on Mobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia. Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications, edited by Carol Soon.
The term “social media” is often used to describe any internet-enabled platform that let “people interact freely, sharing and discussing information [often] about each other and their lives, using a multimedia mix of personal words, pictures, videos and audio”. However, in our paper We work with boyd and Ellison’s (2008) formulation that “what makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks” (para. 6). This aspect of social media is absent from MIMS. Thus, we treat MIMS as a distinct category.
We describe the research approaches to MIMS which are either Computational or Ethnographic, as well as law enforcement perspectives that draw from a longer legacy of surveillance in India. We then describe the two technical lineages that MIMS can be tied to. The first being MIMS as an extension of mobile messaging services. The second is MIMS as an extension of instant messaging services. We emphasize that law enforcement perspective on instant messaging services provide guidance on how LEAs can approach detecting and addressing inaccurate and harmful content on MIMS. We also highlight approaches that leverage civic trust as well as reach of MIMS for effective response. These solutions rely on a more accurate assessment of how technical infrastructures interact with on-ground social relations.
The paper isn't open access, but can be provided on request. Please email us at admin@tattle.co.in.
The complete citation is as follows: Prabhakar, T., Mudgal, A., George, D. (2023). Towards an Effective Response Strategy for Information Harms on Mobile Instant Messaging Services. In: Soon, C. (eds) Mobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia. Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_14