Without mincing any words, Union Minister for Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has accused Facebook of institutional bias against ‘right-of-centre’ ideology and the BJP.
Prasad said there is a “direct outcome of the dominant political beliefs of individuals in Facebook India team”.
In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Prasad said it is problematic when Facebook employees are on record abusing the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet Ministers of India while still working in Facebook India and managing important positions.
In that letter, Prasad accused Facebook of running a concerted campaign in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He said that Facebook India not just deletes pages or substantially reduces their reach but also offer no recourse or right of appeal to affected people who are supportive of right-of-centre ideology”.
“I am also aware that dozens of emails written to Facebook management received no response. The above documented cases of bias and inaction are seemingly a direct outcome of the dominant political beliefs of individuals in your Facebook India team,” Prasad’s letter stated.
In his letter, Prasad said as a trans-national digital platform, it is the responsibility of Facebook to be fair and neutral. In the letter, Prasad wrote, “Individuals working in any organisation may have their individual likes or dislikes, but that must not have any bearing on the public policies and performance of the organisation”.
Citing media reports he stated that right from the company’s India Managing Director to other senior management seem to be having a particular political predisposition.
He also made a reference to the alleged Facebook-BJP link saying that that the recent articles published in some media outlets citing anonymous sources in the organization is nothing but an internal power struggle from within the company for an ideological hegemony.
He also highlighted the issue of Facebook outsourcing fact-checking services to third parties saying that how can the company absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation while outsourcing fact-checking to ‘shady organizations’ with no credibility. “We have seen in India that right from the assessors for on-boarding fact-checkers to the fact-checkers themselves, harbour publicly expressed political biases. Regular vigilant volunteers on social media have to fact-check the fact-checkers!”, he said in the letter.
Prasad has asked Facebook to have country-specific community guidelines.
Read the full letter here.
IT Minister @rsprasad ji writes hard hitting letter to #MarkZukerberg
Exposes @Facebook Conspired against Govt during 2019Elections there was effort by Facebook to delete pages substantially reduce reach offer no recourse who are of right-of-centre ideology #LeftLobbyExposed pic.twitter.com/G8XQoIVFPb
— Devang Dave (@DevangVDave) September 1, 2020