Revision summary
Social media speeds speech and also rumour, hate, privacy harm and blurred official voice. The ethical knots are truth versus virality, privacy versus publicity, and freedom versus incitement. Constitutional morality, as Ambedkar taught, is learned respect for constitutional forms, not a natural feeling. For a civil servant it means equality, dignity, reasoned process and files that can face a court. Good governance and accountability rest on that habit when popular anger or a minister wants a shortcut.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
A phone is now a public square, a rumour mill and a file. Part (a) asks what ethical knots that square ties. Part (b) asks the civil servant to live by constitutional morality, which Dr Ambedkar said is not a natural sentiment. Together they are one paper: how we speak, and what law we obey when we speak for the State.
Body
(a) Ethical dilemmas of social media
Truth versus speed. A forward can ruin a person before a fact-check. The dilemma is between freedom of speech (Article 19) and harm (dignity, riot, suicide). Kant’s test — would I will a world of untested accusation? — says no. Mill’s harm principle says the State may step in when speech incites violence, not when it merely offends.
Privacy versus publicity. A viral video of a patient or a child is a dignity wound. The right to privacy after Puttaswamy is an ethical floor, not only a case name.
Identity versus civic friendship. Algorithms reward anger. Communal and gendered hate is easy; fraternity (the Preamble) is hard. The dilemma for a public servant is whether to mute, rebut, or ignore. Silence can be prudence; it can also be cowardice.
Opacity of the platform. A private company curates a public sphere. Who owes accountability — the user, the firm, or the State? Over-censorship is another dilemma: a takedown can hide a genuine whistle-blower.
Professional boundary. An officer’s personal handle can look like an official verdict. Integrity here is not using the office to trend.
(b) Constitutional morality for the public servant
- Ambedkar, borrowing Grote, said Indians must learn to respect constitutional forms: majority is not licence, office is not property. The Supreme Court has used the phrase in Manoj Narula, Navtej Johar, and the Delhi government cases to mean reason, equality, dignity and institutional process.
For a civil servant this is not poetry. It is Article 14 in a licence, Article 21 in a demolition, neutrality in a communal file, and rule of law when a minister wants a shortcut. Good governance is predictable, reasoned, recorded action. Accountability is the file that can be shown to a court, a CAG, and a citizen. Constitutional morality is the habit that makes those three possible when popular morality or political pressure pulls the other way.
Gandhi wanted means as clean as ends. Ambedkar wanted forms that protect the weak. The officer needs both: a clean hand and a constitutional head.
Flow diagram
Conclusion
Social media creates dilemmas of truth, privacy, hate and official voice. Constitutional morality is the trained respect for rights and process that lets a public servant govern fairly and answer for every file, even when the crowd is loud.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Should an IAS officer run a political Twitter account?
A personal civic voice is one thing. Using official authority or confidential files to trend is a breach of integrity and of service rules.
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Is constitutional morality the same as public opinion?
No. Public opinion can be a majority’s prejudice. Constitutional morality is the document’s promise to the minority and to due process.
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