Ankhi Das has resigned from her post as head of public policy at Facebook India (Archive)
New Delhi:
Facebook executive Ankhi Das, whose name came up in a recent controversy over the social media giant’s alleged bias in dealing with hate speech, resigned from the company. A statement from Ajith Mohan, Managing Director of Facebook India, said: “Ankhi has decided to resign … to pursue his interest in public service … We are grateful for his service and wish him the best for the future.”
In his statement, Mr. Mohan said that Ms. Das played a “critical role in the growth of the company and its services over the past nine years” and has made “tremendous contributions.”
Ankhi Das’s resignation comes weeks after she and the company faced questions, both internal from employees and from the Indian government, about how political content is regulated on the popular social media platform, which has more than 300. million users in the country.
In August, articles from The Wall Street Journal and TIME magazine, allegedly Facebook (and the messaging service WhatsApp, which it owns) did not enforce the rules of hate speech uniformly. Speeches by BJP leaders that circulated widely on these platforms prior to the February violence in Delhi were cited.
The Journal also said that an executive, who was later identified as Ms. Das, suggested to the company that punishing such violations by BJP workers “would damage (their) business prospects.”
According to a second report in the Journal, Ms Das also “made internal posts for several years” detailing her support for the ruling BJP and disparaging her main rival, behavior that some staff members deemed contradictory to the company’s commitment to remain neutral in elections around the world. .
Facebook has insisted that it applies the rules of hate speech uniformly and without regard to the political parties that may be involved, and 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 political spectrum,” said a spokesperson.
The articles sparked a fierce dispute between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, and Rahul Gandhi and others cited them as evidence that social media was being manipulated by the government. An outraged Congress also wrote, twice, to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook was convened before a parliamentary panel chaired by Congressman Shashi Tharoor, but instead of Ms. Das, Mr. Mohan appeared for field questions. The company was also summoned by the Peace and Harmony committee of the Delhi Assembly, but did not appear.
Last week, Ms. Das appeared before a parliamentary panel on another matter, data privacy concerns, and was questioned for nearly two hours, sources told NDTV.
Facebook was told that it cannot use citizens’ personal data for “inferential” purposes in advertising, business or elections. MPs from all parties reportedly asked specific questions about what percentage of Facebook’s revenue is spent on data protection safeguards.
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