New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) If Meta executives are summoned by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, they should be questioned about the company’s decision to stop fact-checking and changes to its content guidelines on hate speech and disinformation, panel member and TMC member Saket said Gokhale on Wednesday.
Gokhale’s comments come a day after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who heads the panel, said the committee will summon executives from social media giant Meta for “damaging” India’s image amid a controversy over its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statement during a podcast that after covid-19 pandemics lost most incumbent governments, including that of India, the 2024 election.
In a letter to Dubey, Gokhale said that in the same interview, Zuckerberg also announced that the platform will end its fact-checking program and will also make changes to its community guidelines.
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“It has been reported on several occasions that there has been significant misuse of Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) to spread hate speech in India. There are concerns that Meta is not doing enough to remove hateful content and take action against accounts which spreads such content,” said the Rajya Sabha MP.
He also said there has also been “widespread criticism” of the role Meta’s platforms play in spreading “disinformation and fake news”.
“During the run-up to elections, it has also been noted by several independent reviewers that Meta tends to exhibit a bias towards certain political parties and does not apply political content guidelines uniformly,” he said.
Gokhale said Meta has often been accused of not following the guidelines of the code of conduct during elections and allowing some political parties to create proxy accounts used for election propaganda.
“As you rightly said, Meta is potentially influencing free and fair elections and the impact of its actions on our democracy needs to be investigated,” he said.
When the panel summons Meta executives, the TMC leader said, it should also question them about the rollback of Meta’s fact-checking system and changes to the company’s content guidelines on hate speech and disinformation.
He also said the panel should question them about Meta’s “alleged bias against select political parties in India” and “the impact of Meta’s algorithm in promoting hate speech, fake news and harassment”.
The TMC Rajya Sabha MP urged Dubey to include the issues on the meeting agenda when the committee summons Meta for a hearing.
“These are issues with major implications for Indian democracy and it is our duty to exercise oversight and ensure accountability from social media platforms at the highest level,” he said.
Zuckerberg reportedly claimed in a podcast that in elections around the world in 2024, most incumbent governments, including the one in India, lost power.
This was countered by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who said Zuckerberg’s statement was “factually incorrect” and as the world’s largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 general elections involving more than 640 million (64 crore) voters.
Dubey, citing Vaishnaw’s rebuttal in a post on X, said the parliamentary committee will call Meta on this “wrong information” and that it should apologize for the statement. PTI AO DIV DIV
This report is automatically generated from PTI’s news service. ThePrint has no responsibility for its content.
