Amid a political row over Facebook India executives” alleged bias towards BJP, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote to Mark Zuckerberg accusing the social media platform”s employees of supporting people from a political predisposition that lost successive elections, and “abusing” Prime Minister and senior cabinet ministers.
In a three-page letter to Facebook Chief Executive Zuckerberg, Prasad alleged “bias and inaction” by individuals in Facebook India team on complaints by people supportive of right-of-centre ideology.
The letter comes a before day the meeting of a Parliamentary committee where opposition parties are likely to raise the issue of Facebook India”s alleged bias towards BJP, and reports of its public policy head Ankhi Das supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and disparaging opposition in internal messages.
“I have been informed that in the run up to 2019 general elections in India, there was a concerted effort by Facebook India management to not just delete pages or substantially reduce their reach but also offer no recourse or right of appeal to affected people who are supportive of right-of-centre ideology,” Prasad wrote.
Stating that dozens of emails written to Facebook management received no response, he said such “documented cases of bias and inaction are seemingly a direct outcome of a dominant political beliefs of individuals in your Facebook India team”.
“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,” Prasad said.
Media reports suggest that Facebook India team, right from the India Managing Director to other senior officials, is dominated by people who belong to a particular political belief, the minister said in the letter.
“People from this political predisposition have been overwhelmingly defeated by the people of in successive free and fair elections. After having lost all democratic legitimacy, they are trying to discredit India”s democratic process by dominating the decision-making apparatus of important social media platforms,” Prasad said.
Facebook is the latest tool in their arsenal to stoke internal divisions and social disturbances, the minister pointed out.
“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. It is doubly problematic when the bias of individuals becomes an inherent bias of the platform,” he wrote.
The minister asserted that it is “unacceptable” when political biases of individuals impinge on the freedom of speech of millions of people.
“However, looking at recent media reports, it seems that these deeply entrenched vested interests aren”t satisfied with the shrinking space for one side of the spectrum in India and want to throttle it completely,” he said.
