The row over social media giant Facebook’s alleged “nexus” with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intensified as the Congress reiterated its demand for the JPC probe. On Monday, the main Opposition party fielded its spokesperson, Supriya Shrinate, to step up the attack on Facebook and accused it for inaction on hate content.
In a virtual press conference, Shrinate alleged, “With all responsibility, I will say that Facebook’s inaction destabilised our democracy. More often than not Facebook takes no action and even worse, allows objectionable content to continue despite being brought to notice.”
She also claimed that Facebook has different rules for different countries, which is not acceptable. “The rules for India are dramatically different and are bent as per their convenience. In Singapore, while deposing before policy makers, Facebook said they were a social media platform and can’t take down content unless it was brought to notice. Ironically in India, despite external complaints and red flags raised by their own trust and safety teams, hate content has been allowed to wilfully continue,” she added.
Shrinate also claimed that there is enough and more objectionable content that exists on the platform, some of which incites violence, some of which is abusive against women, and some which targets particular communities and groups. She also said, “The social media company has removed pages and issued press releases across the world including the US and Turkey, citing ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’, but wondered why it has never done something similar in connection with rumour mongering and hate speeches in India.”
Meanwhile, Facebook has issued a statement on the current controversy, saying, “We prohibit hate speech and content that incites violence and we enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position or party affiliation. While we know there is more to do, we’re making progress on enforcement and conducting regular audits of our process to ensure fairness and accuracy.”
BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya hit back at the Congress, saying: “It is ludicrous to suggest that Facebook is amenable to the BJP and the wider conservative ecosystem. If anything, the reverse is true. In the run up to the 2019 general elections, Facebook unilaterally took down over 700 pages, most of them sympathetic to a nationalist narrative. This trend of targeting large pages and groups run by volunteers and special interest groups, with communities running in millions, hasn’t stopped since. No reasons are assigned and appeals aren’t entertained either.”
Talking about alleged hate speeches, Maiviya said, “What constitutes hate speech in India will be decided by our constitutional framework and extant rules. It must be applied fairly to all irrespective of their political affiliation. Sonia Gandhi, whose divisive speech streamed live on Facebook, which led to widescale rioting, death and destruction, is equally guilty as is someone else. We can’t have double standards.”
Taking a dig at Congress’ poor performance during the two back-to-back general elections Malviya further said, “Shaping public discourse can’t be the exclusive purview of the Left, who have since lost their monopoly and public support. Social media has democratised discourse and that is something they haven’t come to terms with. They often use friendly media to push inconsistent and incoherent narrative to remain relevant. But it is unlikely to yield any political dividend to the Congress, which is struggling with a discredited leadership and waning popular support.”
On Sunday, citing an American publication’s report, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi had accused Facebook and popular messaging app, Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook, for being used by the BJP to influence the electorate of India. While replying to these charges, on Sunday, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had lashed out at the Congress over the issue and called Rahul Gandhi a “loser” while reminding the party of the Cambridge Analytica issue.