NEW DELHI (Reuters) – In top Facebook (FB.O) executive in India has filed a police complaint in New Delhi saying she received death threats after a media report said she and the US social networking company apparently belonged to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen for the Facebook logo in this illustration photo, April 8, 2019. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic / Illustration
Ankhi Das, Facebook’s top public policy leader in India, in her complaint to the Delhi police, as reported by Indian media, said the threats followed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that said they opposed Facebook’s hate- speech rules on a politician from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and some other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups.
Das said that after the WSJ report last week, some individuals online were “consciously devastated” because of their political relationships and engaged in abuse.
“I am very overwhelmed by the compassionate harassment that is being discovered,” Das said in her complaint to the police.
A Delhi police spokesman did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Das also did not respond to a request for comment. Facebook said in a statement that it takes the safety and security of its employees seriously, but “does not comment on individual employee issues.”
The WSJ article has caused a political storm in India and raised questions about practices of content regulation on Facebook.
Das had told staff that punishing violations by politicians of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “would damage the business prospects of the company in the country”, the WSJ article said.
For Facebook, which has more than 300 million users in India, the controversy comes months after it invested $ 5.7 billion in the digital unit of India’s Reliance Industries (RELI.NS).
The company was also seen close to getting permission to launch a payment service on WhatsApp, which also counts India as its largest market with more than 400 million users.
POLITICAL TRADERS
India’s main opposition congress has seized on the WSJ story to seek a parliamentary inquiry into the alleged ties of Facebook employees with Bi’s Modi.
On Sunday, Congress said on Twitter: “Millions of Indians are being controlled and manipulated by BJP via Facebook,” and WhatsApp.
BJP lawmakers in turn accused Facebook of censoring nationalist votes, with lawmaker and former minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in a column in the Indian Express newspaper on Monday accusing Facebook of the “Left-Congress lying platform.”
“This storm in a teacup is just an exercise in browsing Facebook to ‘allow’ certain advice to exist on its own,” Rathore wrote.
“There are examples of current and former Facebook operators with links to the previous government and opposition parties, and some have also been openly critical of the prime minister. Accusing them of being pro-BJP is laughable. ”
Tejasvi Surya, another BJP legislator and member of a parliamentary committee on information technology, said many people had complained to him that Facebook “dishonestly censored many nationalist, pro-India or pro-Hindu voices”, and that he raised the issue with relevant authorities.
Facebook on Monday referred Reuters to a statement over the weekend that said it banned hate speech, despite the political position of one, but acknowledged, “there is more to do”.
Report by Aditya Kalra and Devjyot Ghoshal in New Delhi; edited by Clarence Fernandez / Jason Neely / Susan Fenton
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