14 of 44 pages flagged by BJP during 2019 polls not on FB anymore
The controversy over the alleged bias of Facebook India towards a few right-wing politicians propagating hate speech has opened a can of worms.
In a recent revelation made by Indian Express, it was found that the social media giant had removed 14 of the 44 pages flagged by the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, while restoring 17 deleted pages at the request of the saffron party.
The report said the requests were made through email communication between BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya and Facebook India Public Policy executives Ankhi Das and Shivnath Thukral. Both Das and Thukral, have reportedly declined to comment on the matter.
According to the report, the BJP in the run up to the 2019 polls flagged 44 pages to Facebook which opposed the party, citing that they violated standards and were not factual.
While the flagged pages included the official account of Bhim Army, satire page ‘We hate BJP’ and another called ‘The Truth of Gujarat’, the IE report said 14 including fan pages of journalists Ravish Kumar and Vinod Dua are no more operational.
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According to the report, the BJP in November last year had asked Facebook to restore 17 pages which were deleted earlier and monetise – The Chaupal and OpIndia – two right-leading news websites.
Facebook had reportedly told BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya that the pages were taken down “erroneously”. The Chaupal’s founder Vikas Pandey, however, said that Facebook has not enabled monetization of the site since it was revoked in March 2019.
According to the report, all the 17 pages share content from Postcard News. The portal is owned by Mahesh V Hegde, who was arrested in Bengaluru in March 2018 on charges of promoting communal enmity and outraging religious sentiments by posting “fake news.” Hedge’s connection with BJP was established when he was represented in court by party MP Tejasvi Surya. The official Facebook page of Postcard News was also taken down in July 2018.
The report said Malviya in emails from February 2019, spoke about meetings and discussions on “shielding” certain BJP-leaning pages with Facebook India executives. He told IE that it was Thukral who had suggested in January 2019 a review of pages that the BJP thinks have been “wrongly targeted”.
A Facebook spokesperson, however, clarified that there was no term called “shielding” in use. The spokesperson, said that the social media team, however, sticks to a process called ‘cross check’ to ensure reduction of “errors in enforcement by ensuring content from some pages and profiles is given a second layer of review.” The spokesperson said this process aims to ensure that the company has applied its policies correctly.
“It does not prevent enforcement action if a violation of our community standards is found.”
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The spokesperson said their Public Policy team, comprising politics and government outreach members, were the first point of contact for all political parties during the 2019 elections.
Escalations flagged by various political parties were diverted to specialist teams entrusted with addressing them.
“Global election teams help drive decisions along with content policy teams which oversee enforcement on the basis of the community standards, as well as the operations team which oversees enforcement. Just like other stakeholders such as civil society, media or government institutions, all political parties can flag the issues they are facing with us,” the spokesperson said.
