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New Delhi:
Facebook has acquired the third letter in two weeks accusing it of political bias. In a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Trinamool Congress has stated that accounts and posts had been blocked by the social media large and pointed at a “link” between Facebook and the BJP forward of elections in West Bengal subsequent yr.
The Trinamool Congress, which guidelines Bengal, claimed there was sufficient proof within the public area to substantiate its cost.
Facebook has acquired related letters lately from the Congress in addition to BJP. Today, Facebook officers are to look earlier than a panel of MPs led by Congress’s Shashi Tharoor to reply questions on alleged political bias based mostly on US media reviews.
Trinamool MP Derek O’Brien, who has written to Facebook, refers to an earlier assembly when he had reportedly flagged these considerations.
“We, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), India’s second-largest opposition party, have had serious concerns about Facebook’s role during the 2014 and 2019 general elections in India,” Mr O’Brien wrote within the letter, in accordance with PTI. “With the elections in the Indian state of West Bengal just months away, your company’s recent blocking of Facebook pages and accounts in Bengal also points to the link between Facebook and the BJP. There is enough material now in the public domain, including internal memos of senior Facebook management, to substantiate the bias,” he wrote.
In one other letter to Facebook on August 31, Mr O’Brien flagged “the removal of hundreds of Trinamool Congress supporters’ pages and accounts on both Facebook and WhatsApp for community standard violations.” He stated quite a few Facebook and WhatsApp accounts had been banned within the run-up to the inspiration day of his celebration’s youth wing on August 28.
Yesterday, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, alleged that staff of the social media large “are on record abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet ministers”.
There have 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. Is this action also held back by the same vested interest groups who have an incentive in stoking political violence and instability in India?” – Mr Prasad wrote.
The IT minister additionally alleged he had been advised that within the run-up to the 2019 election, “there was a concerted effort by the Facebook India management 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”.
Mr Prasad’s letter emerged after the Congress wrote to Facebook on US media reviews suggesting Facebook’s bias whereas coping with posts from members of the BJP and the rightwing. A report revealed within the Wall Street Journal stated the social networking website didn’t apply hate speech guidelines on members of the ruling celebration. In a second report, WSJ alleged that Ankhi Das, head of public coverage in Facebook India, “made internal postings over several years” detailing her assist for the ruling BJP and disparaging its predominant rival Congress.
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