Year in review: CAA, Article 370 flavoured up social media in 2019

The town squares of Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp were buzzing this year with people debating issues like Citizenship Amendment Act and scrapping of Article 370 with memes going viral, even as these companies battled the menace of fake news, data breaches and attempts by the government to frame rules to make social media platforms more accountable.

With over 451 million Internet users (at the end of March 2019), India is second only to China in terms of monthly active internet users, as per estimates of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Interestingly, about 66 million of these are children aged between 5-11 years, who access internet on devices of their family members, constituting about 15 per cent of India's active Internet userbase.

Indians are creating and consuming content on their mobile phones -- right from TikTok videos and Netflix shows to news reports shared by friends and family members on various WhatsApp groups.

A large number of users are now joining the Internet bandwagon and conversing in their local languages. This has spurred the availability of vernacular language content online. Read More