In response to a letter from Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to Mark Zuckerberg, Congress on Tuesday questioned the government for failing to seek a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into an alleged collusion between Facebook India and BJP.
Congress was responding to Prasad, who accused employees of the social media platform of supporting politically minded people who lost successive elections and of “abusing” the Prime Minister and high-ranking cabinet ministers.
“If Modi Govt has an iota of credibility, why doesn’t he accept a JPC investigation into blatant collusion between #Facebook India and BJP? Why are you running scared? Why do you give cover fire to the culprits? Why protect collusions? Where is the 56 ‘chest? ”Asked Congress Speaker Randeep Singh Surjewala.
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Dear Ravi Shankar ji:
If Modi Govt has an iota of credibility, why doesn’t he agree to let the JPC investigate the blatant collusion between #Facebook India and BJP.
Why are you running scared?
Why do you give cover fire to the culprits?
Why protect collusions?
Where is the 56 ‘chest? pic.twitter.com/sMbVdvnfww
– Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) September 1, 2020
The congressional reply comes shortly after Prasad wrote a forceful letter to Zuckerberg, raising the issue of free speech with Facebook, claiming the platform is the “last tool” used to create “internal divisions and social unrest. “by created groups.
The controversy between the ruling party, the Opposition, and social media giant Facebook came after a report published by foreign publication WSJ cited interviews with unidentified people from Facebook and claimed that the company’s top policy executive in India’s Ankhi Das intervened in internal content review processes to stop a BJP ban. Telangana legislator Raja Singh, whose posts were aimed at the Muslim community.
The report stated that Das told staff members that punishing violations by BJP politicians would harm the company’s business prospects in India.
Also read: 54 ex-bureaucrats write to Facebook CEO, requesting an audit of hate speech policy
In August, Congress had written to Zuckerberg, for the second time in a fortnight, asking him to specify the steps his company was taking to investigate charges against its operations in India.
In a harrowing indictment, Congress had claimed that Zuckerberg’s team in India voluntarily allowed WhatsApp to hijack hate speech and the consequent tearing of India’s fabric of social harmony.
The general secretary of Congress in charge of the KC Venugopal organization also asked him to explain a global media report that claimed that even WhatsApp, used by 400 million Indians, is compromised and indirectly controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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