The Wall Street Journal said that Facebook has a “broader pattern of favoritism” towards the BJP.
Highlights
- An article has set a fresh line between the BJP and Congress
- The report was published last week in the American publication Wall Street Journal
- Social media giant Facebook has claimed it “bans hate speech”
New Delhi:
Social media giant Facebook today claims it “bans hate speech” amid a huge political controversy triggered by a report in the US publication Wall Street Journal. The report claimed that Facebook deliberately ignored disruptive content from right-wing leaders and workers. When Congress and the BJP shrugged off horns over the issue, the Facebook operator allegedly blamed the decision to favor the right wing, filed a complaint with the police, and said it had received online threats. Yesterday, Congress and the BJP accused each other of social media for their benefit.
Here are the top 10 points in this great story:
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“We ban hate speech and content that encourages violence and we enforce this policy worldwide, regardless of one’s political position or party affiliation. While we know there is more to do, we are making progress in enforcing and celebrating regular audits of our process to ensure honesty and accuracy, ‘a Facebook spokesman said today.
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A 49-year-old executor of Facebook, Ankhi Das, has filed a police complaint in Delhi, claiming she has received life-threatening threats online. The complaint, citing five people, says the accused “deliberately devastated me because of their political relationships and are now engaging in online and offline abuse, subjecting me to criminal intimidation and making sexually explicit remarks.”
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The WSJ article has put a fresh line between BJP and Congress, which has been trading barbs all Sunday. Several congressional leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, shared the article, claiming it was evidence that the BJP was manipulating social media.
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“BJP & RSS control Facebook & Whatsapp in India. They spread false news and hate about it and use it to influence the voters. Eventually the American media came out with the truth about Facebook,” tweeted Rahul Gandhi.
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The BJP cited the three-year-old Cambridge Analytica data scandal and said Congress should not point fingers. Speaking to Congress ‘losers’, Union Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted: “You have been linked to Cambridge Analytica and Facebook in order to arm data for the elections and you now have the gall to us interrogate? “
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Cambridge Analytica was a London-based data firm accused of accessing data from millions of Facebook users to help elect US President Donald Trump in 2016. Two years later, there were allegations that the UK-based company also shared the congressional data from Facebook messages offered to influence voters in the elections for Lok Sabha in 2019. Congress had denied the allegations.
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Congress also called for an inquiry by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the charges cited in the WSJ report, saying it threatened the founding of Indian democracy. Congressman Shashi Tharoor, who heads the parliamentary standing committee on information technology, said the panel would like to hear from Facebook about the report.
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BJP leader Tejashvi Surya took part in the issue, saying in a Twitter post: “Many have complained that Facebook is unfairly censoring many nationalist, pro-India or pro-Hindu voices. As a member of Standing Committee on “IT, I will address it with concerns in appropriate forum. Please send me your complaints about the issue”.
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In its article, the Wall Street Journal said that Facebook has ignored hate speech and conflicting content from BJP leaders and workers and has a “broader pattern of favoritism” toward the party. An executor of the social media giant had also said that punishing such perpetrators “would hurt the business prospects of business” in India, the WSJ reported.
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In the report published on Friday, the American newspaper quoted unnamed Facebook occupants who claimed that one of the executors of India policy intervened in an internal communication to stop a permanent ban on a BJP MLA from Telangana after he claimed local, divisive content posted.
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