Facebook faces heat

Facebook has had its fair share of critics who have repeatedly called out the social network for failing to adequately police hateful and misleading content. The global giant has come under intense scrutiny in India after a Wall Street Journal report indicated that it had gone easy on hate speech by a BJP lawmaker to protect the company’s business prospects in its biggest market. Facebook has over 340 million users and its WhatsApp chat service has 400 million users in India. If that is not foothold enough, in April, Facebook announced it was investing $5.7 billion in Reliance Jio. The insinuation of a ‘broader pattern of favouritism’ towards the BJP has been denied by Facebook, but it has plenty to explain than a casual acknowledgment that ‘while we know there is more to do, we’re making progress on enforcement’.

The Opposition’s demand for an investigation into Facebook’s conduct in India is only going to get shriller, notwithstanding the BJP vociferously taking on the Congress over charges of spreading fake news and influencing the electorate. The Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology may be split over summoning Facebook executives to explain the alleged bias towards the ruling party, but the issue does require fact-checking and transparency. A free run is against national interest and democratic values.

The issue of biased content moderation applies to all social media platforms, not just Facebook. The impact of hateful, inciteful, inaccurate content flowing without check has been devastating in India. As Facebook finds itself embroiled in the political discourse, be it in India or the US where the upcoming presidential election is set to test the efficacy of its self-regulation, the message for amending processes cannot be clearer. For a hugely successful company, profit cannot be the sole driving force. Striving towards being more responsible is a mark of character. That, in the long run, is priceless.

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