Delhi Assembly panel asks Facebook to submit records on complaints on 2020 riots

Raghav Chadha, chairman of the Peace and Harmony Committee also quizzed Facebook regarding the organisational structure, the complaints redressal mechanism, community standards and hate speech definitions with respect to the social media giant.

A Delhi Assembly committee asked Facebook India on Thursday to furnish records of users' reports (complaints) on the content posted on the platform one month prior and two months after the northeast Delhi riots in February 2020.

Damaged vehicles that were set fire during the northeast Delhi riots in February 2020 seen dumped inside a parking lot six months after the incident, at Shiv Vihar, in New Delhi. (Sanchit Khanna/ Hindustan Times)

Hearing a representation by Shivnath Thukral, the public policy director of Facebook India (Meta Platforms), in the Assembly, chairman of the Peace and Harmony Committee Raghav Chadha asked for the records.

He also quizzed the Facebook official regarding the organisational structure, the complaints redressal mechanism, community standards and hate speech definitions with respect to the social media giant.

Thukral said Facebook is not a law enforcement agency but it has a mechanism to co-operate with such agencies whenever required.

"When things happen in the real world, they reflect on our platform as well. We do not want hate on our platform. There are some bad actors that need to be worked on," he said during the hearing.

Thukral said Facebook has 40,000 people working on content management, including 15,000 dealing with content moderation. Any content found against the community standards followed by the platform is taken down immediately, he added.

Summonses were issued by the committee to Facebook India to put forward its views on the critical role of social media platforms in curbing the spread of false, provocative and malicious messages that can incite violence and disharmony.

The panel has so far heard seven witnesses while examining the role of social media platforms in connection with the northeast Delhi riots that claimed over 50 lives and left hundreds of people injured in February 2020.