Facebook’s South Asia public policy director Ankhi Das resigned from her post on Tuesday, the social media company said, weeks after the executive emerged at the center of a controversy for allegedly acting in a politically partisan manner. to help the BJP. Das, who also led Facebook’s public policy team in India, was accused by company insiders of intervening to block actions against a Telangana BJP leader for his Islamophobic comments. His resignation on Tuesday did not appear to be related to the controversy, in which Facebook has denied any wrongdoing. “I decided to leave Facebook after a long service to its mission of connecting people and building communities to pursue my personal interest in public service,” Das said in a Facebook post.
Facebook India acknowledged Das’s resignation and said it played a critical role in the growth of the company. “Ankhi has decided to leave her role at Facebook to pursue her interest in public service. Ankhi was one of our first employees in India and played a key role in the growth of the company and its services over the past 9 years. She has been a part of my leadership team for the past 2 years, a role in which she has made tremendous contributions. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best for the future, ”said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and General Manager of Facebook India.
Ankhi will be replaced by Shivnath Thukral, who was the managing director of Carnegie India. He also oversees operations, including coordination with the Carnegie global network and fundraising. The controversy surrounding Das and Facebook began following an Aug. 14 report in the Wall Street Journal. Das, according to the report, intervened to prevent Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh from being banned from the social media site over possible consequences for the company’s business interests in India. In another August 30 report, WSJ said Das had previously disclosed that he worked with Prime Minister Modi and that he had claimed to have “set his campaign on social media on fire” before coming to power in 2014. Weeks after These reports, Singh was permanently banned from Facebook.
Both Congress and the BJP have accused each other of having a Facebook link. While Congress took advantage of the Das controversy to claim that the BJP was forcing companies to allow hate speech to exist, the BJP cited the removal of content to allege a liberal bias that was behind the silencing of voices on the right. . Last week Das appeared before a parliamentary panel on another matter: concerns about data privacy.
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