After the Congress it is the turn of the Trinamool Congress to express concerns about the Facebook’s alleged prejudicial ways. In a letter to FB CEO chief Mark Zuckerberg, TMC leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O’ Brien has said that his party has enough evidence to substantiate the charges that the virtual platform was biased towards the BJP which has in fact come up as a strong contender for capturing power in Bengal in the next year’s Assembly elections.
Referring to the company’s alleged role during the 2014 and 2019 general elections, O’Brien said as India’s second-largest opposition party, the Trinamool Congress has had “serious concerns about Facebook’s role during the 2014 and 2019 general elections in India.”
Expressing his apprehensions about the FB’s alleged political bias in controlling the collective political mind of the electorate he questioned the company’s act of blocking some of Facebook pages which was anything but impartial.
“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 FB management, to substantiate the bias,” O'Brien said.
Informing that the TMC raised the matter in Parliament in June last year, he said “We were optimistic that the issues and concerns we raised on the floor of Parliament 14 months ago would empower other political parties and the media to also address this substantive issue.” Earlier the Left leadership had also expressed concern at the increased meddling of the IT platforms in the Indian political affairs “controlling election process.” Senior Left leader Samik Lahiri said “if this is not allowing India to be re-colonised by the foreign capitalist interests then what is.”