The Wall Street Journal carried an article on August 14, 2020 titled “Facebook’s Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics” in which it alleged that Facebook gives a free run to the ruling party BJP membe and ignored applying its hate-speech policy by allowing anti-Muslim posts on its platforms.
It quoted ‘unnamed sources’ from Facebook who accused the top executive Ankhi Das for not applying hate speech rules to BJP leaders and favouring the party.
The WSJ article further claimed that by removing fake news pages created by Pakistan and the Congress party before 2019 elections, Facebook had favoured the BJP and ‘helped them’ win.
Pouncing on this, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi put out a tweet saying that the BJP and RSS control Facebook and Whatsapp in India. He said that they use it spread fake news and hatred and use it to influence the electorate in India.
On August 18, the General Secretary of Congress K.C. Venugopal on behalf of the All India Congress Committee shot a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with reference to the article saying that “there are clear charges against the leadership of Facebook India of favouring one party”.
It said that Ankhi Das of Facebook India “provided the BJP with favourable treatment on election-related issues”.
The letter also mentioned another person Andy Stone named in the article of implicit bias. It accused the company of thwarting the rights and values of the Indian democracy.
It also pointed out that the Congress party had raised the matter earlier with many executives of Facebook and Whatsapp which apparently fell on deaf ears.
It went on to suggest a course of action to be taken to address the matter.
Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi’s henchman Saket Gokhale tweeted that Ankhi Das has links with BJP affiliated organizations like ABVP.
Saket Gokhale claimed that Ankhi Das “attends sessions” of the World Organization of Students & Youth (WOSY), a youth group, led by her sister Rashmi Das who was elected JNUSU General Secretary from ABVP in 1996. He also claims that WOSY’s office is located in the same building of RSS office in Delhi. Following this, both WOSY and ABVP gave a stinging rebuttal to Saket Gokhale. WOSY mentioned that Saket had used a picture of Rashmi Das attending the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in 2019 to peddle fake news.
Let us for a moment keep aside all these allegations and look at the following facts.
1) Facebook had recently appointed Siddharth Mazumdar as their policy head. Siddharth earlier worked as political strategist with Prashant Kishor’s IPAC who is now providing political consultancy to DMK, Congress’ alliance partner. He also worked with Congress leader Ahmed Patel.
2) Facebook India’s managing director Ajit Mohan served in the Congress government and is very close with Kanishka Singha, Rahul Gandhi’s right close aide.
3) Facebook’s former Head of News Partnerships Manish Khanduri was given a ticket by the Congress party during 2019 general elections. He was also appointed the Congress’ National Social Media Executive Committee member recently.
4) Who can forget the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scam in which Congress was caught red-handed as a client of the data analytics firm? Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie testified in the UK Parliament saying that he believed the Congress party was a client of the firm.
5) Facebook in the past has ignored hate speech peddled by Congress leaders. Sonia Gandhi’s provocative speech during a rally against the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 gave a call for “aar paar ki ladai” (fight to finish) that gave rise to the Shaheenbagh episode which culminated in the Delhi Riots early this year.
Apart from this several nationalistic pages and profiles were regularly shut down by Facebook without any explanation. Twitter too has been shadow banning or blocking accounts that pose a counter view to the liberal cabals.
So, instead of resorting to mud-slinging out of frustration of being out of power, try to clean the dirt behind your back Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Also, please use your good offices as an MP to do something productive instead of conniving with hollow heads to bring self-made people down.
The competition for Hindu votes
With the US presidential election set to take place this year, campaigns and announcements have been heating up between the Democrats and the Republicans. Both the parties are eyeing for a crucial vote bank – Indians, especially Hindus. Hindus have not only become a formidable vote bank in India but also in the United States. This has become conspicuous with Republicans and the Democrats trying to pull the Indians on their side by coaxing the Indians in different ways.
Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US and Hindus represent 1% of the population of the population of United States, according to 2016 population data.
The Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden appointed his staunch rival during the Democratic primaries, Kamala Harris, owing to her Indian background in the hope of getting some Indian American votes in the kitty. As soon as the news of Kamala Harris’ appointment came, Trump waived of the restrictions in granting H1B visas, one of the pressing points in India-US relations.
Now both the parties are going out of their way to woo the Hindu votes in their favour. President Donald Trump has said that re-electing him will ‘reduce obstacles to religious freedom’ for Hindus in America. On top of this, the Trump Campaign announced the formation of “Hindu Voices for Trump” on August 14. To give tough to Trump, the Democratic campaign team has said that Biden has made an outreach to the Hindus. Neelima Gonuguntla, a Hindu leader participated in the interfaith service to launch the Democratic National Convention. She recited the Shanti Mantra from the Vedas in Sanskrit, ending with ‘Om shanti, shanti shanti’. She also went on to quote from Mahabharata and concluded with a Chinmaya Mission prayer. The service saw participation of leaders from other faiths like Islam and Sikh too.
“Biden has made outreach to the Hindu community a priority”, the South Asians for Biden platforms was quoted saying. Biden has promised increased access to security grants prosecution of hate crimes committed on temples. He has also promised to streamline the processing of religious worker visas that benefit Hindu Swamis and religious scholars.
However, Republican Party’s Hindu Voices for Trump seems to be a step ahead. “Hindus for Trump honours contributions by millions of Americans of Hindu faith”, the campaign was quoted saying in the Economic Times.
The Democratic Party has been trying to flaunt its Hindu/Indian credentials after Indians residing in the US raised their brows on the position taken by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Kashmir and Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. The Namaste Trump and Howdy Modi rally in Ahmedabad and Houston respectively brought to centre the significance of Indian votes in US.
The US Presidential elections are scheduled for November 3 where Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris would be contesting against Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence who are seeking a second term.