IT minister Accuses FB India Team of Political Bias; Writes to Zuckerberg

• Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing Facebook India of ‘bias and inaction’ on complaints lodged by ‘right-of-center ideology’ people.
• The letter comes in the wake of allegations against Facebook India’s alleged bias towards BJP.
• Minister also accused some unnamed Facebook employees of abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior ministers of BJP.

Union minister for information and technology Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg raising concerns over Facebook  India’s leadership team of suppressing the reach of pages that support and promote ‘right-of-center ideology’.

The letter comes in the wake of allegations against Facebook also being accused of showing favoritism to the ruling party BJP.

Also read: Money Rain on Dunzo; Raises $28M in Series E Round Led by Google, Lightstone

The union minister wrote, “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-center ideology".

He said the ruling, right-of-center, Bharatiya Janata Party wrote dozens of emails to Facebook’s management team and received no response.

Prasad wrote that people from a certain “political predisposition have been overwhelmingly defeated by the people in successive free and fair elections” and that Facebook is the latest tool in their arsenal to stroke internal divisions and social disturbances.

Minister also accused some unnamed Facebook employees of abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior ministers of BJP.

Also read: Facebook India Favouring BJP Hate Speech, says Rahul Gandhi

In the letter, Prasad characterized these reports to be based on selective leaks by some Facebook employees to “portray an alternative reality.”

“It is problematic when the bias of individuals becomes an inherent bias of the platform. And it is unacceptable when political biases of individuals impinge on the freedom of speech of millions of people,” the letter stated.

Ahead of last year’s polls, BJP flagged a list of 44 pages opposed to the party, claiming they were in violation of expected standards and carried posts, not in line with facts. At least 14 of those pages are no longer on the platform. The report claimed that Facebook’s India team was responsive to BJP officials.

Meanwhile, the Congress party had also written to Zuckerberg twice in August asking him to specify the steps being taken by Facebook to investigate the charges against its operations in India.