Delhi govt's peace committee to summon Facebook officials over 'inaction on hate speech'

Pulling up social media giant Facebook for inaction to contain hateful content, Delhi Assembly's Peace and Harmony Committee, on Monday said that summons will be issued to concerned officials of Facebook including Ankhi Das. The committee's chairman Raghav Chadha stated that the committee had received multiple complaints. Incidentally, Delhi had witnessed gruesome riots in February killing 53, after several incendiary speeches were made on CAA protests.

Rahul Gandhi on Facebook's 'hate-speech policy' for BJP: 'Influenced electorate with it'

Delhi committee to summon Facebook's Ankhi Das

Congress hints at Parliamentary probe into Facebook's 'hate-speech policy' for BJP

Congress hints at parliamentary probe

Earlier on Sunday, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor- who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, has hinted that the social media giant may be pulled up. Taking to Twitter, Rajya Sabha MP Manish Tewari and Derek O'Brien too highlighted the same - alleging interference in Indian electoral processes. Meanwhile, Das has filed a complaint against threats recieved to her after the report was published by Wall Street journal alleging Facebook's selective practice of applying 'anti-hate speech' rules. BJP, on the other hand, has denied any affiliation with Facebook, slamming the Congress' allegations.

BJP, 'wider conservative ecosystem' not aligned to Facebook, says Malviya; slams Sonia

What does the WSJ report claim?

The American newspaper Wall Street Journal claimed that BJP's Telangana MLA T Raja Singh had often made communal and incendiary speeches that were posted on Facebook, clashing with the company's hate speech rules. The report claims that inspite of the posts allegedly violating Facebook's hate-speech rules and qualifying as dangerous, Facebook India's top public-policy executive Ankhi Das had claimed that punishing violations by BJP would 'damage the company's business prospects in India'. Apart from Singh, three other BJP leaders or Hindutva groups were allegedly flagged by Facebook for hate-speech.

The report further points out that Facebook has faced issues to launch its telecommunications service - Free Basics in 2016 from the Modi government, as it violated net neutrality. The report further stated that while some of Singh's posts were removed by Facebook, the social media giant has demoted Singh's account to a non-verified, unofficial account without a blue tick. Similarly WSJ pointed out that Facebook had taken no action against BJP's Ananthkumar Hegde's communal posts, but Twitter has suspended his account. 

Facebook issues carefully worded statement amid BJP-Congress war on its hate-speech policy

The report states that BJP's Kapil Mishra's incendiary speech ahead of the three-day Delhi riots was taken down by Facebook - with founder Mark Zuckerberg stating in an employee townhall that the platform would not tolerate such behaviour. Citing preferential treatment by Facebook, WSJ points to the removal of thousands of Congress-linked Pakistan military posts and several BJP-linked fake news pages prior to the Lok Sabha elections. While Facebook publically disclosed the deletion of the Congress-linked accounts, it allegedly did not disclose the removal of the BJP-linked posts. Facebook has currently invested a whopping $5.7 billion in the Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio platforms, raking a 9.9% stake in the company.