E-Paper
‘We are open, transparent and non-partisan,’ says Facebook. Complete statement here
The social media giant is currently in the midst of political row in India after a Wall Street Journal report claimed that Facebook ignored its hate speech rules when it came to posts by politicians of Bharatiya Janata Party.
Social networking site Facebook on Friday said that it is “open, transparent and non-partisan”. The social media giant is currently in the midst of political row in India after a Wall Street Journal report claimed that Facebook ignored its hate speech rules when it came to posts by politicians of BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).
The WSJ report cited interviews with unnamed Facebook insiders and claimed the company’s senior India policy executive Ankhi Das intervened in internal content review processes to stop a ban on BJP’s Telangana lawmaker Raja Singh, whose posts targeted the Muslim community. It said Das told staff members that punishing violations by BJP politicians would damage the company’s business prospects in India.
Below is the complete statement released by Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.
Facebook is and always has been an open, transparent and non-partisan platform where people can express themselves freely.
Over the last few days, we have been accused of bias in the way we enforce our policies. We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form. We take this opportunity to offer clarity on policy development and enforcement at Facebook.
Our Community Standards define what stays on our platform and are enforced globally
First and foremost, we want to make it clear that we denounce hate in any form. Our Community Standards, which outline what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook, have clear and very detailed policies against hate speech, which prohibit attacks on people on the basis of protected characteristics, including religion, ethnicity, caste and national origin.
We do not develop these policies alone. We follow an open and transparent process around policy development and rely on the expertise of both internal teams and external voices -- our community, experts and organizations outside of Facebook such as academics, safety and human rights NGOs, and activists -- to make sure we understand different perspectives on safety and expression, as well as the impact of our policies on different communities.
These policies are ever evolving to take into account the local sensitivities especially in a multicultural society such as India. An example is the inclusion of caste as a protected characteristic in our global hate speech policy in 2018.
We uphold the principles of democracy. This also reflects in our organizational set up - like a truly diverse organization, our employees represent a varied political spectrum who have either served in many administrations or have political experience and take immense pride in being active contributors to public service. Despite hailing from diverse political affiliations and backgrounds, they perform their respective duties and interpret our policies in a fair and non-partisan way. The decisions around content escalations are not made unilaterally by just one person ; rather, they are inclusive of views from different teams and disciplines within the company. The process comes with robust checks and balances built in to ensure that the policies are implemented as they are intended to be and take into consideration applicable local laws.
Removing hateful content from public figures
Many questions have been raised specifically about enforcement of our policies around hate speech. There is no place for hate speech on our platform. We have an impartial approach to dealing with content and are strongly governed by our Community Standards. We enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position, party affiliation or religious and cultural belief.
We have removed and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India when it violates our Community Standards.
Decisions about designating people or groups as “dangerous individuals or organizations” are different - these are based on a combination of signals and are made by our dangerous organizations team who have deep expertise in terrorism and organized hate and pay attention to global and regional trends.
Individuals who are designated as “dangerous” under our policies are removed from our services altogether, and all praise, support and representation of them is taken down, as well. Because the penalty associated with designation is so severe, it’s important that our analysis is comprehensive and detailed, and that our process applies consistently and fairly around the world.
In addition to the external input that informs our designation process, we also solicit input from cross-functional teams internal to the company when we’re making decisions about individual designations. These decisions cannot and are not made unilaterally by just one person; rather, they are inclusive of different views from around the company, a process that is critical to making sure we consider, understand and account for both local and global contexts. And the process is dynamic and ongoing based on newly available information or activity.
We’ve made progress on tackling hate speech on our platform, but we need to do more
We have made significant progress in removing hate speech and other harmful content over the past few years. Last week, we shared our latest enforcement numbers, reporting that we removed 22.5 million pieces of hate speech content in the second quarter of 2020 (up from just 1.6 million pieces of hate speech removed in the last quarter of 2017).
Still, we know this work is never over, which is why we will continue to invest in our efforts to combat hate speech on our services. We welcome the opportunity to engage with all parties - political or otherwise - who want to understand our content policies and enforcement more.
Facebook’s commitment to India and its people is unwavering. With some of our largest thriving communities in this country, we recognize our responsibility to keep our platforms to be places where people feel empowered to communicate safely. Our aim is to be an ally for India where our platforms preserve the pluralistic character of a democracy by offering the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things while also protecting society from broader harm.
