“We are non-partisan and strive to ensure our platforms remain a space where people express themselves freely,” said Facebook in its reply to Congress leader KC Venugopal, who had questioned Facebook India’s operations and practices, reported news agency ANI.

The company in its letter said, “We take allegations of bias seriously and denounce hate and bigotry in all forms.”

Replying to the letter by KC Venugopal written on August 18, Facebook public policy director Neil Potts said hateful content by public figures is prohibited on the social media platform.

This comes a day after Facebook India managing director Ajit Mohan appeared before a parliamentary panel on Wednesday.

Potts wrote, “We want to assure you that our Community Standards prohibit attacks against people based on their protected characteristics, including religion, caste, ethnicity, and national origin. ”

He added, “In line with our hate speech policy, we have removed and will continue to remove hateful content by public figures in India on our platforms.”

Also read: Parliamentary panel ‘discussion’ with Facebook head to continue: Shashi Tharoor

The Social media giant’s policy director stated, “We have published Transparency Reports to be open and proactive in explaining how we action harmful content.”

Potts said, “We removed 22.5 million pieces of hate speech content from April-June in 2020, up from 1.6 million pieces of hate speech content removed in the last quarter of 2017. We know there is much more to do and will continue to invest our efforts to combat hate speech on our services.”

Potts ended the letter stating, “To reiterate, we are committed to maintaining the highest levels of integrity in the way we operate and in fostering an environment of free and safe expression on our platforms.”

Facebook is currently embroiled in a controversy after a Wall Street Journal published a report accusing the social media giant of favouritism and bias to India’s ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).   

Facebook had earlier said that the platform remained committed to being open and transparent, and allowed people to express themselves freely on the platform.