The Congress party that insisted on JPC probe on BJP Facebook nexus again on Tuesday tightened its grip and wtittern to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Congress asked Facebook founder to probe allegations that the social media company’s India team meted out favourable treatment towards the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
KC Venugopal, Congress’ general secretary (organisation), has written to Zuckerberg referring to the Wall Street Journal report, which alleged that Facebook’s India policy head Ankhi Das ‘provided the Bharatiya Janata Party with favourable treatment on election-related issues’.
He also asked Zuckerberg to set up a high-level inquiry into the Facebook India leadership team and their operations.
“This is a damning and serious allegation of Facebook India’s interference in India’s electoral democracy,” Venugopal has said in the letter.
“As India’s oldest political party that fought for the nation’s freedom and established electoral democracy through adult franchise, it is deeply disturbing to note that your company may be a willing participant in thwarting the very rights and values that our founding leaders sacrificed their lives for,” he added.
Congress repeatedly raised issue of bias with many Facebook executives. Would suggest setting up a high-level inquiry into Facebook India leadership team and submitting report to Facebook Inc. within a reasonable period of time.
Publish and make transparent all instances of hate speech posts since 2014 that were allowed on the platform. The WSJ article mentions hate speech of three other politicians that were wilfully permitted by Facebook. On a closer perusal, you will find thousands of such insidious posts.
Until the completion of the internal investigation and submission of the report; please consider letting the Facebook India operations to be led by a new team so as not to influence the investigation.
A war of words erupted between the Congress and the BJP following the Wall Street Journal report. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had accused the BJP and RSS of spreading “fake news” using Facebook and WhatsApp to influence the electorate, triggering a sharp counter-attack from Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Prasad, on his part, reminded the opposition party of its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica issue.
Congress and the CPI (M) have demanded a probe by a joint parliamentary committee into the allegations.
Union parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi however has dismissed the call for a JPC probe. It should be noted even the 58000 raffle scam alleged by Congress against PM modi been refuted by Ruling establishment and JPC probe never been called for till date even after entire opposition in India demanded it ..
Facebook received the letter from Congress party is yet to comment over Congress’ demand.
