New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday once again wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, demanding to know what steps have been taken for an "unbiased" probe into the alleged links between BJP and WhatsApp as reported in a magazine, and the alleged failure to curb hate speech on the social media platform.
In his letter, Congress general secretary in-charge KC Venugopal wrote, "In light of new revelations and evidence of biases and quid-pro-quo relationship of Facebook India with ruling BJP, as the principal opposition political party, we urge you to let us know what steps your company is planning to take to investigate these matters and draw plan of action to stem the rot in your India operations."
Venugopal also mentioned in his letter that Congress will pursue legislative and judicial actions in India to ensure that a foreign company does not "continue to cause social disharmony" in the country for its "pursuit of private profits".
An article in TIME magazine had revealed that a top executive of Facebook India walked away from a meeting in which the staff brought up a post, written by a BJP leader, which violated Facebook's laws of hate speech.
Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said, "The unholy intimacy between social media giant Facebook India operations and Narendra Modi-led BJP government is now unravelling fast and is no longer just an India issue but a global one."
Citing the media report, Khera said, "Mr. Shivnath Thukral of WhatsApp is an unabashed devotee of ruling establishment and was partisan in his professional conduct. Mr. Thukral was hired by Facebook in 2017 only because he was extremely close to the ruling establishment."
Read: Congress Party tells Facebook to investigate bias
Praveen Chakravarty, Chairman of Data Analytics of Congress party, stated, "Every Indian has the right to choose what party to like but one cannot allow personal biases to interfere in the professional conduct especially of powerful and monopolistic media platforms such as WhatsApp."
As WhatsApp is also planning to launch its own online payment platform in India, Congress questioned whether there would be a guarantee of no breach of private information like transaction details, being shared with BJP.
"This is not a political issue, these are not baseless allegations. These are deeply researched, investigative articles by more than one credible American Media publication about another American company's dubious operations in India," said Chakravarty.
Seeking an "exhaustive and unbiased" investigation into the matter, Congress demanded that a Joint Parliamentary Committee should be constituted. The party also said that WhatsApp should not be granted any permission for its payment operations until the inquiry is complete.
Read: BJP has hold over WhatsApp: Rahul Gandhi
A massive political row has broken out between BJP and Congress, after a report was published by the Wall Street Journal, alleging that a senior Facebook executive did not apply the company's laws on hate speech by BJP leaders in their posts.
Hitting back at the Congress party, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that people whose political base had "shrunk like anything" were seeking to dominate discourse on these platforms.
Replying to his remarks, Pawan Khera asked, "Whenever we target Facebook, Ravi Shankar Prasad ji instantly comes to its rescue. We want to know what relations does he share with Facebook?"
