A report by foreign daily, The Wall Street Journal, recently accused Facebook of overlooking hate speech posts by BJP leaders to give the opposition a new reason to attack the Centre.
In the article titled “Facebook Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics — Company executive opposed move to ban controversial politician”, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook looks the other way in cases of hate speech and objectionable content from leaders and workers of the ruling BJP.
As per the report, an executive of the social media giant said that regulating BJP’s posts might hamper Facebook’s business in India thus it favours them.
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Quoting current and former employees, the article said Facebook has a “broader pattern of favouritism” towards the BJP.
To this, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked BJP of spreading fake news and hatred by misusing the power.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor also flagged the issue. “The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology would certainly wish to hear from @Facebook about these reports & what they propose to do about hate-speech in India,” his tweet read.
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As the tweets were made, counter attacks came from BJP. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who heads the communications department, was quick to retaliate with Rahul’s involvement in the Cambridge scam.
For the unaware, Cambridge Analytical is a UK based company accused of stealing and misusing data of millions of Facebook users to influence the 2016 elections in the US. The firm, as per the reports, has also proposed a deal to Congress before the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Facebook Clarifies
Meanwhile, Facebook speaking on the issue said that it enforces policies on hate speech “without regard to anyone’s political position or party affiliation”.
Further, a Facebook spokesperson said, “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 conduct regular audits of our process to ensure fairness and accuracy,”
