Bengaluru: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday stressed the need to keep the social media “toxic-free” to build an intelligent and smart narrative for the country to progress fast.
“We should be the pioneers to make that place toxic-free. It should be an engagement forum, but without bitterness, toxicity, negativity,” said Mrs Sitharaman, addressing the sixth Social Media Conclave, organised by an NGO — Namaste India. BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav was also present on the occasion.
Mrs Sitharaman disagreed with the term “warriors” or “yoddhas” for those propagating government programmes on social media platforms and said she preferred to call them architects as they improved the ambience and beautified the surroundings. “Archite-cts do wonderful things to make our ambience, ecosystem better. They bring in more trees. I think, as architects of the social media, we should bring in more culture in the wonderful, technology-based, interaction fora — whether it is Instagram, WhatsApp or Facebook, and a lot more. We communicate better by bringing in a lot of facts,” she said.
The defence minister reminded the audience that there were certain virtues India held for generations, which were missing today. “All of us are here for a common cause. We want a better India. All of us have got some exposure to how civic lives can be better, our individual lives can be better — in rural or urban India,” she said.
Mrs Sitharaman said that there should be an intelligent and smart narrative on the social media platforms.
