Congress writes to Mark Zuckerberg; claims evidence of quid-pro-quo between Facebook & BJP

Claiming that WhatsApp has been allowed by Mark Zuckerberg's India Team to be 'appropriated for heat speech,' the Congress wrote its second letter to the Facebook CEO within a fortnight. Citing a report by Time Magazine, the Congress General Secretary wrote to Zuckerberg highlighting that there is evidence of biases and a quid-pro-quo relationship of Facebook India with the ruling BJP. The Opposition party had previously written to the tech-giant after a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report alleged that Facebook India had favoured the BJP in regards of the social media giant's 'anti-hate speech' rules.

'In favour of the ruling BJP'

Congress' General Secretary KC Venugopal, in the party's second letter to Zuckerberg, wrote, "The BJP has been allowed to exercise control of Whatsapp India operations in return for a possible license for its payment operations, which is critical for the furture of Whatsapp in India. More than just one person in your company's leadership team in India is biased and partisan in favour of the ruling BJP in their professional endeavors. The problem is larger, deeper and more pervasive than initially assumed." 

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Furthermore, the Congress claimed, "The Whatsapp platform used by million Indians has been willingly allowed by your India team to be appropriated for hate speech and the consequent of India's fabric of social harmony." 

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The Congress has sought Zuckerberg's reply demanding to know the steps taken by the social-media giant to investigate the aforementioned matters. It has also informed, through the second letter, that the party will pursue 'legislative and judicial actions' to ensure that a foreign company cannot continue to cause 'social disharmony' in the counrty for its 'private profits'.

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'Facebook does not want to pick fights with BJP'

Similar to the WSJ report earlier, the recent report in TIME claims that the social media giant's employees have had severe ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. In this case, the report has named Shivnath Thukra who was Facebook public policy director for India and South Asia who had allegedly worked with the party leadership during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign. It also alleges that Thukra's role at Facebook was to discuss action when posts by politicians were flagged as hate speech. Furthermore, the TIME report goes on to mention that Facebook has been 'reluctant' to scrutinize posts by members and supporters of the BJP because it does not want to 'pick fights' with the government that 'controls its largest market'. 

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