In recent weeks, the company has been repeatedly under fire for its actions and policies in India, which is more important to its business as the country is closed to China and is looking for future growth.
The court is set to hear Facebook’s application on Thursday.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is the second time this month that Facebook has come under investigation by Indian authorities.
Company representatives were also questioned earlier this month by the Indian Parliamentary Committee on allegations of hate speech and political bias, said Shashi Tharoor, head of the committee and opposition politician.
To tweet That they “unanimously agreed to resume discussion later.”
After the hearing, Facebook said it was “committed to being an open and transparent forum.”
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Facebook had allowed India’s ruling party politician to stay on its platform, despite its anti-Muslim posts reprimanding its rules against hate. The journal quoted current and former employees as saying that Ankhi Das, Facebook’s head of public policy in India, opposed the removal of the politician as doing so harmed his business interests in the country.
Earlier this month, Facebook banned politician Raja Singh. A company spokesman told CNN Business that the process for assessing potential violators was extensive and that led to our decision to remove his account.
India is one of the most important markets for Facebook, with more users than anywhere else in the world. The company has rushed to cash in on India’s digital boom in recent years, with more than 600 million internet users in the country and almost the same number still numbering online.
Earlier this year, Facebook poured 7. 7.7 billion into India’s richest man-owned internet company – one of its largest investments ever. The Indian government became the first country to receive a new company service, Instagram Reels, in late June, amid a military dispute with China over the ticketing parent company.
Despite their importance in the country’s business potential, Facebook’s tenure in India has been marked by a series of controversies and frictions with the authorities. In 2016, the Indian government blocked Free Basics, a plan to give millions of Indians free internet access through Facebook, on the grounds that it was against the principles of open internet. More recently, Facebook has been pushing against the government’s demand to create messages on its mobile service WhatsApp, which went viral in 2018 after more than a dozen lynchings, arguing that breaking encryption would compromise the platform’s privacy.
The company is also in discussions with the government over proposed rules that would ban tech companies from storing and processing Indian data.
Facebook’s actions in India – and Mistaps – the company has exemplified questions outside its own country, especially in non-Western emerging markets. In an internal memo obtained by BuzzFeed News, a former Facebook data scientist outlined several cases when the company slowed down the misuse of its platform by politicians in Holduras, Azerbaijan and many other countries.
The report mentioned in the memo a network of more than a thousand artists working to influence the local elections in New Delhi in February.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN Business, but told BuzzFeed News that its teams have taken down more than 100 networks around the world for abusing its platform.
“Working against integrated abnormal behavior is our priority, but we’re also looking at spam and fake engagement issues,” Facebook spokeswoman Liz Borges told BuzzFeed News. “We investigate every issue carefully … before we take action or get out and make a public claim as a company.”
Facebook has faced accusations of failing to curb hate speech in several of India’s neighbors, including Sri Lanka and Myanmar, where the company admitted two years ago that it was too slow to prevent the spread of “hate and misinformation”. Widespread violence against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
Nikhil Pahwa, a digital activist who was at the forefront of the Indian tech news website MediaNama, said Facebook has previously shown a tendency to take action in the developing world when facing questions from international media or global agencies such as the United Nations. India’s 2016 fight against free basics.
“Or historically, the platform works late,” said Pahwa, who testified before parliamentary and Delhi committees. They first give the possibility of developing a problem and then react to it instead of taking action on the first problem. “CNN Business.” Sometimes they have to be held accountable for not acting, and I think we’re getting into a situation around the world where it’s becoming a cause for concern. ”
The position of India as the largest market for Facebook by users, as well as the growing desire of the Indian government to ban foreign companies that do not comply with its rules, means that it will have to tighten its grip on the country. And with current questions surrounding vague speech, the company’s own policies make that balance more delicate.
“Political leaders are influential speakers and are especially dangerous when they incite violence. Unfortunately they also control the entry of companies into markets, and India is a huge market for Facebook,” said Chinmayi Arun, a fellow at Yale Law School. Whose work is centered on the Internet. Rule. “The company needs to work out how to remain committed to its policies against incitement to violence, despite the dangers posed by opposition from political leaders,” he added.
Mishi Choudhury, co-founder and legal director of the New York-based tech advocacy group Software Software Freedom Center, said the problems facing Facebook in the United States have long existed in many developing countries. Chaudhry cited the company’s track record in countries such as Brazil and Myanmar, and more recently in Cambodia, as examples of the company’s “non-compliant approach” outside the West.
“The rampant issues in the Global South were ignored by Facebook until the 2016 U.S. election,” he said. “They like to support us and play good stories about connecting the world.”
Both Chaudhary and Pahwa point out that Facebook issues in India are a feature of a large number of global debates about how responsible tech companies are for content on their platforms – a debate that is also going on in the United States. The status of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks as mediators allows for simplification of speech without being held accountable for what is said.
But the Indian government is now trying to change that. The proposed amendments to the country’s technological laws will force the search for personal messages on social networks and messaging platforms that the government considers a threat. The proposed changes also require that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter take down “illegal” content within 24 hours.
“When you consciously choose not to take action on repeated violations that cause harm, that is the choice you are making, and somewhere the law will catch you,” Pahwa said. “The gap between responsibility and accountability is filling with regulation. And that’s happening right now.”
CNN’s Vedika Sud and Swati Gupta contributed to the reporting.
.
