Congress writes to Zuckerberg again, demands to know steps taken on hate speech row

BJP was allowed to exercise control of WhatsApp India’s operations, Congress said

Facebook-Security Breach Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg | AP

The Congress party has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for the second time, demanding to know what steps the social media giant has taken against allegations that the company’s India team dispensed favourable treatment to the BJP.

In the first letter written on August 17, following a report by the Wall Street Journal, Congress secretary K.C. Venugopal accused Facebook India of "interfering" with the country's electoral democracy, and demanded a time-bound high-level inquiry into the conduct of Facebook India leadership team, and their operations.

The second letter comes after another report in TIME magazine that, Venugopal said, ‘reveals more information and evidence of biases and a quid-pro-quo relationship of Facebook India and the ruling BJP’.

Venugopal listed out ‘alarming’ points that the article stated, claiming that the BJP has been allowed to exercise control of WhatsApp India’s operations. Venugopal added that WhatsApp, which is used by 400 million Indians is being appropriated for ‘hate speech’.

In the previous letter, Venugopal had demanded setting up of a high-level inquiry by Facebook headquarters into the Facebook India leadership team.  "Set up a high-level inquiry by Facebook headquarters into the Facebook India leadership team and their operations and submit a report to the Board of Facebook within one or two months. The report should also be made public," Venugopal had said in the letter.

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