Congress party wrote a letter to the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg on Friday wherein they sought an internal inquiry on fake news and inflammatory content being spread on the social media giant under Bharatiya Janata Party's tenure.
A letter has been written by the social media head of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), Rohan Gupta in this regard.
Gupta told ANI, "The atmosphere of propagating false news and hatred under Facebook India's patronage that is becoming extremely dangerous and Facebook is becoming irresponsible. Today, nearly 37 crore people in the country are using Facebook in our country. This is a matter of 'serving hatred' to those people. Is Facebook responsible to someone? How is Facebook fulfilling this responsibility?"
"Three facts have come to light in this matter. Firstly, according to a report, when Facebook staff points out hatred and fake news content being spread through Facebook in India, the Facebook executives reply that it is not that big an issue, it is not a problem. This hatred is hollowing out India's brotherhood and is weakening India. Facebook India seems to not have a problem with it and more importantly, BJP has no problem by weakening India due to hatred. What kind of nationalism is this?," Gupta said.
"The second fact is that when inflammatory content, fake news was being spread on Facebook, the social media giant chose to ignore its own internal reports on the problem. Instead, Facebook India reduced the number of people in its team who controlled such content, reduced the budget and BJP took advantage of this. BJP people indiscriminately spread lies about our leaders, about Gandhiji-Nehruji-Patelji-Netaji-Bhagat Singh ji. As a result, there was a flood of inflammatory content and false news on Facebook," he said.
Gupta said, "The third fact is shocking. In the Facebook India report, it said that during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP-RSS spread fake information, hatred among people at an alarming level to win elections and Facebook India also allowed it to spread. Despite this information, Facebook's cutting down on its team assigned to crack down on provocative and fake posts. Facebook India is not only escaping from its responsibilities but also highlighting, forming the nexus of spreading lies and hatred. But we will not allow the land of India to be used for spreading lies and hatred."
"In the letter, we asked a few questions. Why did Facebook remain silent on this issue for two years despite knowing about it? Why did Facebook not take action on the content that spreads lies and hate? Why did Facebook allow its platform to be used by the BJP to spread lies and hatred? How long will it take for Facebook to present the truth in front of the country?," he said.
Speaking on the issue, Gupta alleged, "BJP practices a business of hatred. We have been continuously raising our voices about the one-sided attitude of Facebook. The whole country is aware of Facebook's nexus with the ruling BJP. BJP was getting favours from Facebook's office.This nexus simply means that 'BJP's Lotus blossomed only by using Facebook to spread the mud of hatred, We have written a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook urging him to conduct an internal inquiry about the functioning of Facebook, India and release the data in the public sphere."
( With inputs from ANI )
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