After severe criticism from Opposition parties, including the Congress for its alleged bias to ruling BJP’s content, Facebook on Thursday banned Telangana MLA T Raja Singh from its platform and Instagram for violating its policy on content promoting violence and hate.
“We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our policy,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The BJP leader, however, claimed he has no FB account for over a year.
The social media giant also responded to the Congress saying the organisation has taken seriously the concerns and recommendations raised by the grand old party and that it takes allegations of bias seriously and said it always denounces hate and bigotry in all forms.
The action came against the backdrop of both the Congress and Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad writing to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, accusing the social media platform’s employees of “political bias.”
The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to remove his account, the statement added.
In a video message, Raja Singh claimed he did not have a Facebook account since April 2019 and that the pages the social networking site now banned might have been created by his followers.
In a letter addressed to Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, Facebook’s director of Public Policy Neil Potts, said, “At the outset, we thank you for your letter dated August 18, 2020. We take seriously the concerns and recommendations you raised on behalf of the Indian National Congress.”
Venugopal, in separate letter, had alleged a “quid-pro-quo relationship” between Facebook India and the ruling BJP. Before him the Congress had also levelled similar charges against Facebook in a letter written after the US-based publication came out with certain facts as how the social media giants through its platform including WhatsApp had facilitated the BJP in elections after elections in recent times.
“First and foremost, we want to take this opportunity to state that we are non-partisan and strive to ensure that our platforms remain a space where people can express themselves freely. We take allegations of bias seriously and want to make clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in all forms,” Potts’ letter said.
Potts’ mentioned that as a Public Policy Director at Facebook, he looks after Facebook’s Trust and Safety Policy Team - a team of subject matter experts that provides advice and counsel to the company on various issues, including Counterterrorism, Cybersecurity, Civic Integrity, Safety, and Human Rights.
“We removed 22.5 million pieces of hate speech content from April-June in 2020, up from 1.6 million pieces of hate speech content removed in the last quarter of 2017. We know there is much more to do and will continue to invest our efforts to combat hate speech on our services” he said in the letter.
Facebook also reminded about the last interaction it had with the Congress IT members where it discussed the Community Standards of the company.
“On the question of hateful content by public figures, we want to assure you that our Community Standards prohibit attacks against people based on their protected characteristics, including religion, caste, ethnicity, and national origin. In line with our hate speech policy, we have removed and will continue to remove hateful content by public figures in India on our platforms,” the letter added.
Facebook also informed that it has a team with deep expertise on terrorism and organised hate, who pay attention to global and regional trends and advise on these matters.