Ravi Shankar Prasad writes to Mark Zuckerberg, alleges bias against BJP

Union IT minister Ravi Shankar has written to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg alleging bias towards members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This comes at a time when the Opposition alleged Facebook India of ignoring hate speech by some BJP leaders and supporters after a Wall Street Jorunal report.

Prasad, in his letter to the Facebook founder, alleged that employees of the social media giant “are on record abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet ministers” while still working in Facebook India and managing important positions. However, he said, there were attempts through “selective leaks” to portray a different reality.

The “interference in India’s political process through gossip, whispers and innuendo is condemnable. This collusion of Facebook with the international media is giving free run to malevolent vested interests to cast aspersions on the democratic process of our great democracy,” he wrote.

The IT minister stated, “In the run-up to the 2019 election, there was a concerted effort by the 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”.

Prasad further stated, “Facebook India team, right from the managing director to other senior officials, is dominated by people who belong to a particular political belief”. He added that “people from this political predisposition have been overwhelmingly defeated in successive free and fair elections.”

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who heads a parliamentary committee, has summoned Facebook officials on Wednesday to answer questions on these reports.