In the backdrop of politics, workplace, ethics and community getting reshaped, Indian regulators need to lay the ground rules for user privacy soon, feels Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
Talking to BusinessLine , Friedman said the regulators need to frame a policy that will take into account millions of rural Indians who may not understand the privacy concerns arising out of using social media. Friedman, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, evinced serious concerns over social media, particularly Facebook, which he felt has not kept in mind the regulatory needs.
He touched upon some of these issues in his address to Nasscom delegates on Thursday and felt strongly that regulators are way behind in catching up with the rapid strides that technology has made.
There is a strong need for technologists to understand the Constitution, he said.
He criticised Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief, who he felt should have taken a course in the US Constitution, instead of learning how to code.
Friedman, who is known to have strong views against US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, took jibes at both of them.
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His latest book “Thank you for being late” captures the myriad forces that are reshaping the world, politics, role of communities and climate change.
Friedman said, to understand the world today, one needs to look at the three non-linear accelerations — market, mother nature (climate change) and Moore’s law, which states that processing power of computers doubles every two years.
By market, he was referring to globalisation but not through our grandfather’s lens but the changing nature of globalisation as a result of rapid advancement in technology.
To understand these forces, Friedman is of the view that the year 2007 was a game-changing year.
In 2007, the Apple iPhone was launched, Facebook and Twitter started operations, Hadoop was launched, VMW went public, Github (largest open source hub) came into existence, Google bought YouTube, launched Android, IBM launched Watson, Amazon launched Kindle, Airbnb was launched, internet crossed a billion users and Michael Dell came back to head Dell. “But we forgot all that because of the 2008-crisis,” he said.