Hate speech row: Facing life threat, top Facebook executive in Delhi files FIR

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 17

The Facebook controversy, triggered by a report alleging that it was turning a blind eye to hate speeches in India to further its business, became murky after the company official in the centre of the storm filed a police complaint here alleging online harassment.

Facebook’s senior India policy executive Ankhi Das in a complaint to the Delhi Police said she was being threatened online after a US newspaper reported that she had asked the company’s online monitors here to go easy on communally charged posts from at least four Hindu leaders and organisations.

Das’ complaint with the police’s cyber cell unit says many people have issued violent life threats through online posting or publishing of content while online media alleged she was the sister of a veteran ABVP activist from JNU. 

Read also: Our policies without regard to party affiliation: Facebook 

Ajit Mohan, Facebook’s India operations chief, is reported to have defended Das but by then online trolls started targeting him too by pointing out that he had had stints in the UPA government as a consultant.  

The Facebook controversy has already acquired political hues after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi highlighted it and former minister Shashi Tharoor wrote to the company asking if it was true that Das had opposed application of hate-speech rules on the posts by at least four Hindu nationalist individuals and groups.

Tharoor has said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology will take up the matter at its next meeting in the first week of September. “We will summon Facebook officials to examine if there is any lapse in their working or there is some deliberate cooperation with the Government of India to shield certain political leaders in India,” he said.

A Congress delegation is also understood to have met Das and flagged its concerns. “This exposure comes as a shock. New facts are emerging exposing its close ties with the BJP,” said Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera.

The issue became a political slugfest and the BJP’s side was given by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and former Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Prasad counterattacked by seeking details of the UPA government’s ties with Cambridge Analytica, a company alleged to have siphoned personal data from Facebook in a commercial deal. There were unverified reports that then Congress President Rahul Gandhi had met Analytica’s chief to harvest the data for elections.

Facebook has denied the allegations. “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,” said a company spokesperson.

India is a major Facebook market and its sister concern WhatsApp’s payments plans are awaiting final clearance from the RBI after having been restricted to a pilot project for over two years. The company has suffered a blow in Brazil where the same app was suspended after an initial run.

The Facebook India chief’s post has seen turbulence for the past few years. The last chief, Umang Bedi, left after 18 months with the company, after taking over from Kirthiga Reddy who had held the post for five years that spanned both the UPA and NDA regimes. The company remained headless for a year after Bedi left and Mohan took over.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.