Not a triumph

IN Digital Media | 26/09/2012

The Government of India created minor social media history by having one of its advisors hold a Twitter press conference, but the common consensus was that he did not have enough of a clue on how to handle this new-fangled medium. Despite being the GOI's tech whiz.

Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, responded to the queries posted on his Twitter handle @pitrodasam. While many thought the press conference was about “Democratization of Internet” because of user handle @UPAGovt, Sam Pitroda conveyed that the purpose of the conference for him was to respond queries related to “Democratization of Information.”

Post North East exodus, after the government came under criticism for censorship of Internet, it has been trying innovative ways to make full use of the social media. Recently Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had held a Google plus Hangout where he had live chat with people.

Sam Pitroda who has 29,494 followers on Twitter is known to be a major contributor to the development of communications in India. On Tuesday he welcomed everyone with a tweet at around 03:30pm and continued answering questions for the next 45 minutes. The main issues in the questions from journalists were about censorship, government websites and internet access in India. Although he was clever enough to duck questions related to censorship of internet.

Some criticized Pitroda for not giving substantial answers and some criticized him for not answering at all. But many social media experts applauded him for this bold step. Before starting the press conference, he told everyone to first watch his press briefings on “Democratization of Information” and “Why we were using twitter”. After declaring the hash tag #DoI, @Pitroda was trending on Twitter with hundreds of questions being posted on his Twitter handle.

Calling information the “fourth pillar of democracy”, he started with tweets stressing on the importance of Information to bring about “openness, accessibility, transparency, accountability, networking, decentralization and as a result democratization.” He also tweeted that “UPA Govt has various plans to build robust Information Infrastructure to democratize information on a scale that has never been done before” and “UPA Govt also has political will to make it happen”.

While highlighting various government plans for development of communication in India through broadband and Fibre optics projects, Pitroda was a bit shaky in responding to questions regarding censorship of Information. Even though he tweeted, “Information is power and not many wish to share. Info is critical for development and needs to be timely available to people”, he was quick enough to respond to a query by @ShivangiNarayan asking him “will DOI see the same fate as RTI which sees exceptions every day?”He responded with “Certain sensitive information will have to be controlled by the government.” Another tweeple @swapnapillai followed up with a question, “What is the kind of information that will not be shared?” Pitroda’s response to that was “Various dept will decide that. First there will be some concerns. However, I am sure after a while dep will be more open.”

During the whole 45 minute press conference, Pitroda made mistakes by replying to questions in irrelevant threads. @Joydas tweeted, “@pitrodasam Sir, pls reply in Conversation thread so people know the question u r answering. Or better RT and reply” to which @Hitlerbai added “@Joydas I think Pitroda Sam has to learn using Twitter effectively First ;)”

Pitroda’s response to Times of India’s question, “Why is internet access, which is a basic right in many countries, so expensive in India?” was, “Hopefully prices will go down as we get more broadband capacity and OFC to panchayats.”  

FirstPost called the press conference #EpicFail: Pitroda makes a hash of DoI hashtags! Most Twitter users were disappointed with the conference as Pitroda sidestepped answering many questions particularly those related to censorship, privacy and RTI.

Being a trending spotlight on Twitter, Pitroda was bound to be flooded with questions and it was impossible for him to answer all of them. Having no experience of holding such a press conference before, government official or departments need to research the online medium about it limitations as well. One such limitation in doing a press conference on Twitter was that Pitroda could answer in maximum 140 words and some questions needed more detailed answers which in turn disappointed people.

At the end he tweeted “Enjoyed interacting with all of you, wish had more time. More next time. Hope we do this more often. Signing off. Thanks a lot. SP.”