Amid a massive controversy over reports that a Facebook executive opposed members of the ruling BJP and did not act with incendiary messages, the government wrote to Mark Zuckerberg alleging otherwise.
EU Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in an acute letter to Facebook’s founder, alleged that social media giant workers were “officially abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top cabinet ministers” as they ran for Facebook in India and managing posts.
Recently, there have been “multiple instances in which Facebook has been used through anarchic and radical elements whose sole purpose is to destroy social order, recruit other people and combine them for the purpose of violence.However, we have not yet noticed any”.significant action opposed to such elements.Action also withheld through the same teams of vested interests that have an interest in stoking political violence and instability in India?Mr. Prasad wrote.
The Minister of Computer Science wrote that he had been told that on the eve of the 2019 election, “there was a concerted effort through the control of Facebook India to not only remove pages or particularly diminish their reach, but also offer any recourse or right to appeal to those affected that the center-right ideology.”
Prasad cited “credible media reports” that the Facebook India team, from the managing director to other senior officials, “is governed by other people of specific political convictions.”
Without appointing Congress, he added that “people born of this political predisposition have been massively defeated in successive free and fair elections.Having lost all democratic processes by mastering the decision-making apparatus of social media platforms.Facebook is the newest tool in your arsenal.”to stoke internal divisions and social unrest.”
The minister’s accusations have been coupled with the political controversy over US media reports suggesting Facebook’s bias in dealing with messages from BJP members and the right.In a report at the time, the WSJ alleged that Ankhi Das, Facebook’s head of public policy in India, had “posted internal messages for several years” detailing his for the ruling BJP and denigrating his main rival, Congress.
Facebook officials have been invited to appear before a parliamentary committee headed by Congressman Shashi Tharoor to answer questions about the reports.
The Minister, in an obvious reference to the reports, wrote that “deeply entrenched vested interests are not satisfied with the area’s relief in one aspect of the spectrum in India and need to strangle it completely.”
Describing the reports as an “internal force struggle” within Facebook, Prasad said, “No other logic can weave facts through selective leaks within his company to see how to paint a reality of choice.”
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“Interference in India’s political procedure, gossip, whispering and innuendo is reprehensible.Facebook’s collusion with foreign media unleashes malicious interests to complain about the democratic procedure of our wonderful democracy,” he wrote.
Urging the EXECUTIVE Director to adopt country-specific EU guidelines, Prasad called Facebook a new delight in democratizing people’s expression “that cannot be hijacked through an inverted lobthrough that abhors freedom of expression and tries to defend a worldview.”
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