Delhi riots: Facebook buys time to appear before Committee

Facebook has sought two weeks’ time to appear before the Delhi Assembly Committee on Peace and Harmony with regard to its alleged role in whipping up communal discord before the communal riots that rocked the capital last year.

The Committee, headed by AAP MLA Raghav Chadha, has issued summons to Facebook to appear before it on 2nd November, 2021.

Facebook’s Indian public policy head has now requested for the extension to make it possible for the social networking site to make sure the availability of senior representatives who are competent to provide the committee with the necessary data.

Facebook earlier challenged the summons.

The Assembly Committee in its statement said: "The Committee has decided to call upon representative(s) of Facebook India to depose its view on the important role of social media in curbing the spread of false, provocative and malicious messages which can fan violence and disharmony."

It further said: "The Committee is examining the unprecedented communal disharmony and violence in Delhi in February 2020, with a view to recommending suitable measures to defuse the situation and restore harmony among religious communities, linguistic communities or social groups.”

More than 50 people lost their lives and hundreds injured in deadly communal clashes between February 23 and 26 last year in North East Delhi.

Facebook of late has been struggling with a lot of bad PR after US newspapers, aided by a whistle-blower, unravelled a series of stories that exposed its inability in containing hate speech.

US newspapers like The Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal revealed that Facebook failed to take action on pages linked to the BJP and RSS which were violating the platform's rules by spreading hate.

Facebook, however, claimed that it has a proper system in place to check hate speech.

 

Media
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Media