Now, Facebook faces political heat in India

A Parliamentary panel on IT, led by Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, is questioning Facebook today based on an article carried by Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which had alleged that the social media giant was overlooking the hate speech posted by some BJP leaders as well as right wing group.

In a second report, WSJ has stated how Ankhi Das, Head of Public Policy, Facebook India had been making internal postings over several years, where she shared details of her support for BJP. In a statement issued, Facebook maintained that Das’ posts did not show bias as alleged and that her posts were taken out of context. The social media giant stressed that its policies were strongly against hate speech.

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Meanwhile, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Telecom and IT, has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, where he alleged that Facebook employees have been abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior BJP ministers on several occasions. In his strongly worded letter, Prasad wrote that there had been “multiple instances recently where Facebook has been used by anarchic and radical elements whose sole aim is to destroy social order, recruit people and assemble them for violence. However, we are yet to see any meaningful action against such elements.” He also accused the senior Facebook management of bias and added that a vested lobby on the platform was blocking free speech.

He also alleged that in the run-up to the 2019 General Elections, the Facebook India management had made concerted efforts “to not just delete pages or substantially reduce their reach but also offer no recourse or right of appeal to affected people who are supportive of the right-of-centre ideology”.

Shankar pointed fingers at people of a particular political disposition who are using Facebook to stoke internal divisions and social disturbances.

The BJP and the Congress have both hit out at Facebook for being biased towards each other. Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had tweeted, “International media have fully exposed Facebook’s & WhatsApp’s brazen assault on India’s democracy & social harmony. No one, let alone a foreign company, can be allowed to interfere in our nation’s affairs. They must be investigated immediately & when found guilty, punished.”

Interestingly, both Prasad and Gandhi have alleged that vested lobbies at Facebook were trying to discredit India’s democratic process (as stated by Prasad) and were brazenly assaulting India’s democracy and social harmony (as stated by Gandhi.