Facebook on Sunday night restored the page of Kisan Ekta Morcha who has been sharing updates on the farmers’ protest against the Center’s farm laws after removing it a few hours earlier. It was not immediately clear how long the page was taken.
A photo shared by the group on Twitter at 7.18pm showed that the Facebook page had not been published because Kisan Ekta Morcha was against Facebook’s “community spam standards”.
“This is what they can do when people speak out,” Kisan Ekta Morcha said on Twitter. “When they cannot defeat us ideologically.”
Activist Yogendra Yadav said on Twitter that he had been doing a video feed on Facebook Live from Kisan Ekta Morcha’s page, when the group received a notification that the page had not been published.
In the middle of a Facebook Live that I was doing from the Kisan Ekta Morcha page, we received a notification that the FB page has not been published.
There must be something about farmers that this government is particularly scared of and something about this government that Facebook is particularly scared of https://t.co/yYCZu6r3UR pic.twitter.com/xjnpS7nRRi
– Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) December 20, 2020
The news sparked outrage on Twitter.
“As an immediate question and at least Facebook is expected to issue a detailed statement on how and why the Kisan Ekta Manch page was not published,” the Internet Freedom Foundation said in a tweet. “Second, it must provide a public commitment to a transparent review of human rights as set out in the United States.”
Brief statement: The action taken by Facebook to shut down Kisan Ekta Morcha requires a close look at their content moderation policies and practices. India has about 300 million Facebook users. It is the largest market. Even then there is little transparency or accountability. 1/2
– Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) December 20, 2020
This is what the world sees, India falling in freedom index.
Latest example when unpublishing the Facebook page of @Kisanektamorcha .
We strongly oppose this act.#TooDemocracy @Facebook pic.twitter.com/DXjzCVtmTZ
– Biased Media (@ BiasedMedia7) December 20, 2020
Just before 10 p.m., social media users noticed that the page had been restored.
So @Kisanektamorcha The Facebook page is back. pic.twitter.com/rlyma2bDgh
– Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 20, 2020
This came at a time when questions were being raised about Facebook’s alleged bias towards the Bharatiya Janata Party. December 14 The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook did not ban Bajrang Dal from its platform due to political and business considerations, and concerns for employee safety. In addition to Bajrang Dal, Facebook’s security team also warned two other right-wing groups, Sanatan Sanstha and Sri Ram Sena, against banning the platform.
The Bajrang Dal is part of the Sangh Parivar, the largest family of right-wing organizations affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The RSS is also the ideological mentor of the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook India’s director of public policy, Ankhi Das, opposed the idea of removing incendiary posts from BJP leaders, warning that this could harm the company’s “business interests” in its largest market, India. . Das resigned from his position on October 27.
Several other Facebook reports in favor of the BJP have also emerged. According to one such report, Facebook removed 14 of the 44 pages flagged by the BJP for opposing it in January 2019. In August, it also emerged that the BJP was the top advertiser on Facebook on “social issues, elections and” the previous 18 months, based on information from the social media platform’s ad spend tracker.
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