CM Delhi and AAP coordinator Arvind Kejriwal embraces party leader Sanjay Singh during his speech to supporters after the party’s victory in the State Assembly elections, at the AAP office in New Delhi on February 11, 2020 (PTI / File Photo).
Zhang said he worked to eliminate “a politically sophisticated network of more than a thousand actors working to influence” the Delhi Assembly elections held on February 8.
- News18.com
- Last update: September 15, 2020 11:35 AM IST
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A former Facebook employee has claimed that the social media giant ignored or was slow to deal with bogus accounts that influenced elections around the world, including India.
In a 6,600-word internal memo, written by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang on her last day at the company and obtained by BuzzFeed News, Zhang reveals how the platform was used to influence public opinion and manipulate elections.
“In the three years that I have spent on Facebook, I have encountered multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on a large scale to deceive their own citizens … I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without supervision. , and I took action to enforce the law against so many prominent politicians globally that I have lost count, ”he said.
Zhang, who was fired from Facebook recently, said she worked to eliminate “a politically sophisticated network of more than a thousand actors working to influence” in the Delhi Assembly polls that were conducted on February 8.
On August 14, an article published in The Wall Street Journal stated that Ankhi Das, director of public policy for Facebook India, South and Central Asia, opposed applying Facebook’s hate speech rules to four people and groups with links to the BJP. The article said that despite being internally flagged for promoting violence, she was against enforcing the rules due to business imperatives.
The article said Das had told staff members that punishing BJP politicians for these violations would be detrimental to the company’s “business prospects in the country, Facebook’s largest global market by number of users.”
Responding to Zhang’s allegations, Facebook spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois said in a statement: “We have built specialized teams, working with leading experts, to prevent bad actors from abusing our systems, resulting in the removal of more than 100 networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior. “
A Delhi Assembly panel issued a notice to Facebook India Vice President and Managing Director Ajit Mohan, asking him to appear before it on Tuesday in connection with complaints about the social media giant’s alleged deliberate and intentional inaction to contain content. hate in the country.
“The assembly committee had received multiple complaints directed at its chairman Raghav Chadha against officials concerned at Facebook over its alleged deliberate and intentional inaction to contain hate content in India for created motives,” said a statement from the Assembly’s panel of Delhi.
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