‘We enforce policies without regard to anyone’s political affiliation’: Facebook

Amid political slugfest involving social media giant Facebook, a company spokesperson has said that the platform “prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence. “We enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position/party affiliation,” the spokesperson added as reported by news agency ANI.

The official also said that the company is making progress on enforcing and conducting regular audits of its processes to ensure fairness and accuracy.

We prohibit hate speech&content that incites violence&we enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position/party affiliation. We're making progress on enforcement&conduct regular audits of our process to ensure fairness&accuracy: Facebook spokesperson pic.twitter.com/8zHJhZuXXJ

— ANI (@ANI) August 17, 2020

This comes a day after Congress leader and former party chief Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP and its ideological parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) control Facebook and WhatsApp in India.

In a tweet, Gandhi said, “They spread fake news and hatred through it and use it to influence the electorate. Finally, the American media has come out with the truth about Facebook”. His tweet also contained snippets of media reports.

Senior Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor tweeted out saying, “The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology would certainly wish to hear from @Facebook about these reports & what they propose to do about hate-speech in India”.

Congress leaders Ajay Maken, Praveen Chakravarty and Rohan Gupta, demanded the creation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to look into the matter.

 

Losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP & RSS.

You were caught red-handed in alliance with Cambridge Analytica & Facebook to weaponise data before the elections & now have the gall to question us? https://t.co/NloUF2WZVY

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) August 16, 2020

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has categorically denied the allegations.

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad slammed Gandhi and replied to his tweet saying, “Losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP & RSS. You were caught red-handed in alliance with Cambridge Analytica & Facebook to weaponise data before the elections & now have the gall to question us?”