Delhi House panel on Monday in continuation of its proceedings in Facebook matter examined certain witnesses which includes Prabir Purkaystha, Editor of online news portal NewsClick and Pratik Sinha, co- founder of Alt News.
During the peace and harmony panel, chaired by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Raghav Chadha, Purkaystha deposed that there is no transparency as well as accountability of Facebook in terms of its functioning, organisational structure, and grievance redressal mechanism.
He further deposed that there is a correlation between Facebook’s inaction and disturbance of Peace and Harmony in the society. “ Facebook only responds to the grievances or issues when it turns to be an embarrassment in the U.S. He also mentioned that in stark contrast to the US, complaints to Facebook are met with inaction, when same/similar grievances are made by the Indian organizations,” Purkaystha said.
Sinha, Co- founder of Fact checking website AltNews, deposed before the committee stating that there is a usual surge in the flow of misinformation during every election cycle. More so, sudden splurge was also seen during the Delhi Riots, 2020 also. “Facebook’s fact checking and content moderation attempts are failing and thus needs to be worked upon,” he added.
“Both the witness unanimously deposed that there is an imperative need of more transparency in the operation, functioning as well as grievance redressal system of Facebook, particularly. The Delhi Legislative assembly’s committee after the careful deliberations of the allegations in complaints levelled against Facebook taken prompt cognizance of this issue and has set its mechanism in full swing,” a statement from the Delhi Legislative Assembly quoted.