Congress on Friday wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the company’s “apparent and evident bias” in India towards the ruling dispensation, also criticising it for negligence in controlling hate speech.
At the AICC press conference held to highlight the issue, the party also demanded a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into alleged manipulation of elections by the US tech company.
The letter, sent by the Congress’s social media department head Rohan Gupta, claimed that Facebook has shown a bias towards the BJP “despite their proclivity for sharing hate speech, misinformation, fake news and inflammatory content” on its platform. Gupta asked Zuckerberg to conduct an internal enquiry about Facebook India’s functioning and make the findings available to the public. “It is your responsibility as the head of this organisation to hold those responsible for betraying our people accountable for their actions,” he said.
The Congress also asked him to hold an independent inquiry to probe charges of hate speech and fake news being spread through Facebook and WhatsApp in India.
Referring to reports that said that as inflammatory and divisive content increased across markets, including India, the global team reviewing hate speech at Facebook faced cost cuts, Gupta wrote, “It has also been revealed that your cost cutting approach towards hate review led to a drastic and rapid increase in such content over the last two years.”
Facebook used only 9% of its budget to stop and check hate speech in its content, especially in Hindi speaking India, he alleged.