NEW DELHI: Head of Facebook India Ajit mohan he is known to have denied as “factually incorrect and false” a Wall Street Journal report on the social media giant who refrained from banning Bajrang Dal for fear of retaliation.
Mohan’s testimony before the standing parliamentary committee on information technology on Wednesday immediately led to Bjp to attack Rahul Gandhi, who had seized the WSJ report to claim that Facebook had been commanded by the right wing. The American business daily had alleged that while fact-checkers on Facebook determined that Bajrang Dal was dangerous, it decided not to evict the Hindutva team from the platform.
However the Facbook team led by Mohan told the parliamentary panel headed by Shashi Tharoor from Congress, that the people cited in the WSJ report “had no knowledge or authority, and were not in the chain of command” to comment on the decision-making process. However, Mohan was unable to answer questions as to why Facebook had not issued a rejoinder and sought corrections of fact from the WSJ on what was posted.
Sources said some MPs also asked Facebook to share the political affiliations of each of Facebook India’s 268 employees, a demand the platform said it could not comply with because it did not have the necessary information. Mohan’s claims about the report in the US newspaper saw BJP MPs demand that the social media platform should label a post by Rahul as ‘fake news’ in which he shared a report from TV channels based on the claim. by WSJ.
To this also, Facebook could not give a clear answer. When asked about the specific mechanisms it had to verify hate speech, it emerged that the team told the panel that Facebook does not have a complaint redress mechanism in India. The team also said it did not favor any individual or political party, nor did it face any political pressure. The Tharoor-led panel was scheduled to hear from Facebook representatives on the subject of ‘Safeguard citizens ‘rights and prevention of misuse of social / online media platforms, including a special emphasis on the safety of women in the digital space’ However, since the platform found itself at the center of another Controversy over not banning Bajrang Dal even though it was discovered that he was sharing supposedly sensitive information to the community, Tharoor and some other MPs looked to Facebook for an explanation.
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