Delhi panel questions Facebook's role in 2020 Delhi riots

A Delhi government committee on Thursday questioned representatives of Facebook India (Meta Platforms) while examining the role of social media platforms in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots.

This came months after officials of the social media giant deposed before a parliamentary panel, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, to answer queries related to the misuse of social media.

On Wednesday, the Peace and Harmony Committee chaired by AAP leader Raghav Chadha asked Meta Platforms to provide a list of complaints registered one month before and two months after the riots, and the action taken over them.

Chadha posed queries regarding the organisational structure, the complaints redressal mechanism, community standards and hate speech definitions with respect to the social media giant.

The social media giant was represented by director Shivnath Thukral and director (legal) G V Anand Bhushan.

“Does the global CEO (Mark Zuckerberg) regularly review public policy in India,” asked Chadha. To this, the official replied, “We are structured in a manner where we have enough checks and balances to coordinate across the world.”

However, when asked about how many staff work in the public policy team in India, or if the team is diverse enough to understand minority problems in the country, the representative could not give a clear answer.

“When things happen in the real world, they reflect on our platform as well. We do not want hate on our platform. There are some bad actors that need to be worked on,” Thukral said. He said the social media giant has 40,000 people working on content management, including 15,000 dealing with content moderation.

The committee also asked the company to clarify its “community standards” and give out a clear definition of “hate speech” in the context of India. However, the respondent said they have a global standard to follow regarding hate speech.

The panel claimed posts were removed when confirmed as “inflammatory”.

The social media giant has been accused of influencing politics and seeding violence across the globe.

“The atmosphere of propagating false news and hatred under Facebook India's patronage is becoming extremely dangerous and Facebook is becoming irresponsible,” said Rohan Gupta of All India Congress Committee.

The AICC had written to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg this year seeking an internal inquiry into fake news and inflammatory content.

The Peace and Harmony Committee said they will summon Facebook India representatives again. The panel has heard seven witnesses so far.

The nine-member committee was constituted by the Delhi Assembly in March last year to probe the communal violence in northeast Delhi.