New Delhi: Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing the company of bias against certain ideologies.
In his strong-worded letter, Prasad said that Facebook staff abused PM Narendra Modi and other Cabinet ministers, resulting in the political bias of the platform.
"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," the three-page letter to Mark Zuckerberg read.
The letter came after the Congress cited a media report which claimed that Facebook executive Ankhi Das expressed support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the general election results.
Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded punishment for the 'guilty'. "No one, let alone a foreign company, can be allowed to interfere in our nation's affairs. They must be investigated immediately and when found guilty, punished," Gandhi had tweeted.
Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that "facts are being spun by selective leaks" from the company and said, "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 the right-of-centre ideology," he added.
The Minister also raised his concern about the third-party fact checkers hired by the social media platform. "A Major issue with Facebook is the outsourcing of fact-checking to third party fact-checker. How can Facebook absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation and instead out-source this to shady organizations with no credibility," Prasad wrote.
"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. Regularly vigilant volunteers on social media have to fact-check the fact-checkers! Even after on-boarding many fact-checkers, lot of misinformation related to COVID-19 and its aftermath went unchecked," the minister added.
Condemning the interference in India's political process, he alleged that the "collusion of a group of Facebook employees with international media is giving a free run to vested interests to cast aspersions on the democratic process of our democracy."
Highlighting that Facebook has been a novel experiment in democratising the expression of people, the Minister urged the Facebook CEO that the experiment should not be allowed to be hijacked by a vested lobby that abhors free speech and rejects diversity.
Read: Rahul Gandhi demands probe into operations of Facebook, WhatsApp in India
Pertinently, the letter comes one day prior to the meeting of Standing Committee of Parliament on Information Technology which has summoned Facebook officials.
Headed by veteran Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, the Committee will hear from Facebook representatives on the subject: "Safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space".
Later in the day, the Committee will hear oral evidence on the subject from representatives of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY).
Read: "Facebook-BJP in alliance, Digital imperialism imposed in India": Congress
