Facebook’s Director of Public Policy in India, South and Central Asia, Ankhi Das has filed a complaint against a number of people for sending “violent life threats through online posting/publishing of content,” news agency ANI reported. The complaint has been filed at the cyber cell unit in Delhi.
This comes a day after an article in an American newspaper triggered a war of words between the Congress and the BJP. The article in Wall Street Journal accused Facebook of defying rules of its hate speech policies when it comes to the posts of leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The newspaper in its August 14 article accused Das of favouring BJP politicians and had opposed applying hate speech policies on the posts of “at least four” individuals or groups in connection to the ruling party.
On Sunday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had accused the BJP and the RSS of spreading fake news via Facebook and WhatsApp. Citing the WSJ report, he said, “BJP & RSS control Facebook & Whatsapp in India. 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.”
However, Facebook denied such charges. “We prohibit hate speech and content that incites violence and we enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position or party affiliation. While we know there is more to do, we’re making progress on enforcement and conduct regular audits of our process to ensure fairness and accuracy,” a Facebook spokesperson said, according to news agency PTI.
