New Delhi, 12 August:
The Indian Youth Congress has expressed deep concern over the unholy collusion of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Facebook to control public opinion. This alliance has been revealed by the Wall Street Journal, which claimed that Facebook deliberately ignored hate and communal posts based on BJP’s agenda due to its commercial interests. National President of the Indian Youth Congress Srinivas B.V. said, “For a fair election, public opinion needs to be fair but the Bharatiya Janata Party and RSS are now working with a foreign company like Facebook to influence the country’s public opinion and elections, which is really dangerous for the country. It is unfortunate for Facebook not to take down posts by BJP MLA T Raja Singh and other leaders.
Raja Singh’s politics is also based on hate, violence, division and communalism, just like his parent organization. Support to Raja Singh by Ankhi Das shows that Facebook has promoted BJP’s communal and hatred agenda for its commercial gains which is utterly shameful.”
He further said that, “the Modi government is continuously suppressing democracy in the country and running propaganda of hatred and communalism controlled by Facebook and WhatsApp for their own benefit. As the voice of disagreement is shrinking in the country, it is worrying and embarrassing for the government to control communal and hate agenda by controlling Facebook and WhatsApp.”
Significantly, the Wall Street General, quoting insiders from within Facebook, revealed that Facebook’s India policy head Aankhi Das interfered in the company’s internal content review process to further BJP’s hatred agenda and BJP MLA from Telangana Raja Singh’s posts were not allowed to be banned on Facebook. Raja Singh’s post were communal and aimed to malign a community. Srinivas ji further said, “This unholy nexus between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Facebook cannot be in the interest of the people of any democratic country. Facebook has also been accused of selling personal data in the past.
He asked, “Is this why Facebook supports the BJP’s troll army, who carry forward the hateful agenda of the BJP through ugly statuses and fake news? Should Facebook have a relationship with the head of the ruling party? We demand that Facebook should take disciplinary and criminal action against those involved in this manipulation being done in their company for the benefit of the ruling BJP. We also demand that the parliamentary committee should take appropriate action by taking cognizance of this unholy nexus between BJP and Facebook. The ruling BJP should clarify this situation in front of the people of the country. We also demand that a relevant proceeding be undertaken against T. Raja Singh by the Telangana Legislative Assembly.”
