With a mission to check hate speech ahead of the upcoming Indian elections, social media site Facebook said it will deploy a task force to ensure there are no oversights. "We want our platform to support free and fair elections and positive civic engagement. We welcome people to engage with their political leaders but we don't want people to abuse that," Facebook vice president for public policy EMEA Richard Allan told media in Delhi.
In the 2016 US elections, Facebook had come under fire for allowing the spread of disinformation and hate speech without proper checks and balances. "When we see elections coming up, India is top of our mind. It is the biggest democracy in the world, so we have a task force working on that, with security specialists and content specialists. We trying to understand the possible form of abuse in India, comparing that to countries like the UK," he said.
"We have a general policy that applies all across the world. As we look at issues in different countries, there was a view that hate speech is directed against people in India in particular, and Indians outside India too. They may direct hate speech against each other on the basis of ...caste," Allan said.
He said there should be no hate speech attack based on gender, ethnicity, national origin, disability or religion.
Allan said that attacking a concept or saying one doesn't like a religion is not a hate speech. However, one can not say that he hates followers of that religion or concept.
"There is a very clear distinction between not liking a concept and not liking an idea. Some people find that controversial. They feel attacking religion is the same as attacking followers," Allan said.
Assembly elections are due in December for five states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram. Chhattisgarh will go to the polls in two phases on November 12 and 20, the Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram Assembly elections will be held on November 28. Assembly elections in Rajasthan and Telangana will be held on December 7.
-Inputs from PTI
