‘Facebook abusing PM Modi’; Law Minister writes to Mark Zuckerberg over political bias

September 1: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has written a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating that there was a concerted effort by Facebook India officials to delete pages of right-of-centre ideology. Ravi Shankar Prasad further said that right from India MD to other senior officials, they all belong to a particular political belief. Facebook is the latest tool in their arsenal to stoke internal divisions and social disturbances.

The letter comes in the wake of a controversy stoked by a report in the Wall Street Journal, alleging that Facebook showed a bias in not taking down content from the BJP supported pages or accounts that flouted norms and that its head of public policy in India, Ankhi Das, showed support for the BJP.

Stressing that Facebook is visibly seen to be fair and neutral, he lamented that people having a certain political belief are trying to discredit India’s democratic process by dominating the decision-making apparatus of social media platforms. Pointing out that Facebook India employees were abusing the PM and other Cabinet Ministers, Prasad contended that Facebook had emerged as the latest tool to stoke internal divisions and social disturbances.

He spoke about “a concerted effort by Facebook in the run up the 2019 general elections to 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”, adding that dozens of mails written in this regard to the social media giant has gone unanswered. However, there were attempts through “selective leaks” to portray a different reality, he wrote.

Another issue raised by Prasad is the outsourcing of fact-checking services to third parties, which he called “shady organisations with no credibility”. He said that “vigilant volunteers” have to regularly fact check these groups, adding that a lot of “misinformation” about COVID-19 and its aftermath have gone unchecked. He said an organisation like Facebook with transnational presence and wide user base cannot be immune to local sensitivities.

Prasad in his letter also called for India-specific Community Guidelines and took issue with Facebook’s “outsourcing of fact-checking to third party fact checkers.” “How can Facebook absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation and instead out-source this to shady organizations with no credibility?” the letter stated.