Facebook is the latest tool used to create social disturbance: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Alleging that some of Facebook employees indulging in abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cabinet ministers, IT and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said that social media giant is the “latest tool” being used to create “internal divisions and social disturbances” by vested groups.

In his strongly-worded letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Minister asked the US based firm to come up with country-specific community guidelines for better representation of diverse views.

The Minister also said that as a transactional digital platform, Facebook must not only be fair and neutral, but also visibly seen to be so.

Prasad sent a letter to the US firm amid the controversy over media reports alleging the social media giant's India unit being biased towards the ruling BJP.

"I have been informed that in the run-up to 2019 General Elections in India, there was a concerted effort by Facebook India management to not just delete pages or substantially reduce their reach but also offer no recourse or right of appeal to affected people who are supportive of the right-of-centre ideology. I am also aware that dozens of emails written to Facebook management received no response. The above-documented cases of bias and inaction are seemingly a direct outcome of the dominant political beliefs of individuals in your Facebook India team," the Minister said.

Questing the outsourcing of fact-checking, the Minister said "How can Facebook outsource responsibility to shady fact-checkers with no credibility?".

Noting that some of employees of Facebook abusing the Prime Minister, he said: "it is problematic when Facebook employees are on record abusing the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet Ministers of India while still working in Facebook India and managing important positions. It is doubly problematic when the bias of individuals becomes an inherent bias of the platform. And it is unacceptable when political biases of individuals impinge on the freedom of speech of millions of people."

Flagging the issue of FB employees, the letter said “Individuals working in any organisation may have their individual likes or dislikes, but that must not have any bearing on the public policies and performance of the organisation. It seems from credible media reports that Facebook India team, right from the managing director to other senior officials, is dominated by people who belong to a particular political belief,” the letter says.

"I would like to point out that there have also been multiple instances recently where Facebook has been used by anarchic & radical elements whose sole aim is to destroy social order, to recruit people and to assemble them for violence. However, we are yet to see any meaningful action against such elements." he said.

Pointing out fact checking outsourced by Facebook to third party fact-checkers, the Minister said,"How can Facebook absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation and instead out-source this to shady organisations with no credibility?. "

Without taking names, the Minister said that people from a particular “political predisposition have been overwhelmingly defeated in successive free and fair elections. After having lost all democratic legitimacy, they are trying to discredit India’s democratic process by dominating the decision making apparatus of important social media platforms.