Facebook’s India policy head should step down, say civil rights groups
The letter was signed by quite 40 groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center, Witness, Muslim Advocates, and Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
Facebook’s India policy head should step down, say civil rights groups
Civil rights groups on Wednesday said Facebook has did not address dangerous content in India and demanded that the top of public policy there be removed.
A letter addressed to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and his second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg wanted the social network’s India policy chief Ankhi Das sidelined pending the results of a civil rights audit.
“Facebook shouldn’t be complicit in additional offline violence, much less another genocide, but the pattern of inaction displayed by the corporate is reckless to the purpose of complicity,” the letter stated “It is not any secret, given the acknowledged and harsh realities of Facebook’s role within the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, that online violence and hate easily spill into violence in real world .”
The letter was signed by quite 40 groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center, Witness, Muslim Advocates, and Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
It comes within the wake of controversy over anti-Muslim remarks posted on the page of a member of the ruling party that weren’t initially removed.
“The full extent of the harm done by Facebook India is yet to be determined, but even what we all know now highlights the urgent and high nature of those demands,” the letter read.
Facebook has acknowledged within the past that it must do more to fight hate speech in India. The social network didn’t immediately answer an AFP request for comment.
Facebook last week banned an outspoken right-wing Indian politician for spreading hate speech about Muslims because the social media giant battled accusations of bias over its handling of rival parties within the key market.
T. Raja Singh, a regional lawmaker for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, was blocked “for violating our policy prohibiting people who promote or engage in violence and hate from having a presence on our platform,” a Facebook spokesman said at the time.
Raja made headlines for reportedly saying that Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar should be shot.
Facebook has been caught within the middle of accusations of bias from rival sides in India’s feverish political battlefield. India is that the American firm’s biggest market in terms of number of users.
Opposition parties said it favors the BJP after the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook’s Ankhi Das refused to require down anti-Muslim comments by Raja Singh because it could damage the company’s business interests.
Social media giant Facebook admitted last month that it’s to try to to better to curb hate speech because it battled a storm over how it handled comments by a member of India’s ruling party who called Muslims traitors.
“We’ve made progress on tackling hate speech on our platform, but we’d like to try to to more,” Facebook India’s director Ajit Mohan said during a statement that denied any bias.
