Ankhi Das is Head of Public Policy at Facebook India (Archive)
New Delhi:
A Facebook executive at the center of allegations that the social media site failed to enforce hate speech rules on members of the ruling BJP was named in a second Wall Street Journal report about internal posts allegedly showing political biases.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, Ankhi Das, head of public policy at Facebook India, “made internal posts for several years” detailing her support for the ruling BJP and disparaging his main rival, behavior that some staff members found contradictory to him. company commitment. stay neutral in elections around the world.
Ankhi Das, states the report, released the day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi achieved victory in the 2014 national elections: “We set his campaign on fire on social media and the rest is, of course, history.”
In a separate post on the defeat of Congress, Ms Das praised Prime Minister Modi and wrote: “It has taken thirty years of grassroots work to finally rid India of state socialism.”
Ms. Das called Facebook’s top global election official, Katie Harbath, her “longest traveling companion” in the company’s campaign work. In one photo, Ms. Das was standing, smiling, between Mr. Modi and Ms. Harbath.
WSJ says the posts cover the years 2012 to 2014 and were made for a Facebook group designed for employees in India, which included several hundred employees, although it was open to anyone from the company globally who wanted to join.
In a previous report, the Journal had reported that Facebook overlooked inflammatory content from members of the BJP and the right wing. He also said that one executive said that punishing violations by BJP workers “would hurt (their) business prospects.”
Facebook India has been asked to appear before a standing parliamentary committee on information technology, which is chaired by Congressional MP Shashi Tharoor, on September 2 to answer questions raised by the article.
Facebook said last Tuesday that Das’s posts do not display inappropriate bias. “These posts are taken out of context and do not represent the full scope of Facebook’s efforts to support the use of our platform by parties across the Indian political spectrum,” said spokesman Andy Stone.
Facebook had said that its social media platform prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence and that these policies apply globally regardless of political affiliation.
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