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New Delhi:
Facebook representatives are anticipated to look earlier than a parliamentary committee right now amid an enormous controversy over allegations by US publication Wall Street Journal that the social media big neglected hate speech posted by leaders of the BJP and proper wing teams. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology chaired by Congress’s Shashi Tharoor, which considers points like social media abuse, had requested Facebook India to reply questions raised by the WSJ article.
A notification on the assembly was despatched by the Lok Sabha Secretariat final month. Besides representatives of Facebook, the committee had additionally requested representatives of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to stay current.
Following the report within the Wall Street Journal, Mr Tharoor mentioned the parliamentary panel would take into account getting an affidavit from Facebook executives. The subject, he mentioned, could be “Safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms”.
But his tweet on the matter triggered vociferous protests from BJP members of the panel, who accused him of “flouting rules” to push Congress agenda and demanded his elimination.
The political battle over the difficulty heated up on Tuesday as Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that staff of the social media big “are on record abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet ministers”.
The Congress hit again with a requirement for an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee. “If Modi Govt has an iota of credibility, why doesn’t it agree to a JPC probe into the shameless collusion between #Facebook India & BJP. Why are u running scared?” tweeted senior Congress chief Randeep Surjewala.
Congress’s Rahul Gandhi additionally demanded an investigation. “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,” his tweet learn.
The WSJ report final month claimed that Facebook didn’t apply hate speech guidelines on members of the ruling BJP and right-wing teams even after the difficulty was flagged internally. The report additionally claimed {that a} senior Facebook India coverage govt, Ankhi Das, had informed workers that making use of hate-speech guidelines to politicians near the ruling occasion “would damage the company’s business prospects in the country”..
In a second report, WSJ alleged that Ankhi Das “made internal postings over several years” detailing her help for the ruling BJP and disparaging Congress.
Facebook – which has greater than 300 million customers in India — has mentioned its social media platform prohibits hate speech and content material that incites violence and these insurance policies are enforced globally with out regard to political affiliation.
It has additionally mentioned the posts by Ms Das don’t present inappropriate bias. “These posts are taken out of context and don’t represent the full scope of Facebook’s efforts to support the use of our platform by parties across the Indian political spectrum,” spokesman Andy Stone mentioned.
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