Facebook India’s ruling party ties Complicating the fight against hate speech

In July 2019 Alaphia Zoyab was to discuss on a video call with Facebook employees in India, about 180 places of users in the country that Avaaz, the control group, where he worked, which violates the rules of Facebook hate speech. But halfway through the hour session Shivnath Thukral, the highest-ranking Facebook the call officially, got up and left the room, says Zoyab and said it has to do other important things. Under the message it was one of Shiladitya Dev, a legislator in the state of Assam for the prime minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He had allegedly drugged News reports are shared on a girl and raped by a Muslim man and his comment: “This is how the Muslims of Bangladesh target our [indigenous] in 2019.” But instead of removing it allows Facebook post office to stay online for more than a year after the session until August TIME Facebook contact to ask, 21. “We looked into it, first as Avaaz, which show us and our recordings show that we hate lesions evaluated discourse, “Facebook said in a statement sent to TIME. “We failed to remove initial inspection was a mistake on our part.” Thukral was director of public policy for Facebook India and South Asia at the time. Part of his work has been lobbying the Indian government, but was also involved in discussions on how to act when articles by politicians have been labeled as a hate presenters, former employees say TIME. Facebook acknowledges that Thukral leave the meeting, but says it should never be complete, and was only introduced Zoyab he knew from a previous job to his team. “Shivnath leaves because the problems were not important,” Facebook said in the statement stressing that adopt company introduced in 70 of the 180 points in the session. The social media giant is increasingly under control, as it forces its hatred policy if the accused are members of the Modi government party. Activists say some officials the Facebook politics are too close to the BJP, and now throwing its relationship with the government prior to their stated goal is the incitement of his platform in particular to remove when the political party of government involved. Thukral for example, has worked to support the election campaign in 2014 with leaders of the BJP party, he has seen after time. Facebook CEO for India, Ajit Mohan, evidence has denied that the club showed bias towards the BJP in a blog post on August 21 entitled: “We are open, transparent and non-partisan” He wrote: “Despite several political and hail backgrounds, [our employees] the respective roles and our policy in a fair and non-partisan interpret manner. decisions concerning the escalation of content not made unilaterally by one person; rather, they are seen by different teams and published disciplines within the company included. “Facebook blog post after the Wall Street Journal, citing current and former employees of Facebook, reported Aug.14 that the main political officials in India, the Ankhi , repressed Facebook leaders against others, the BJP politician wanted to label “dangerous individual” and banish from the platform after calling for Muslim immigrants to be shot. He argued that the state punishes legislators, T. Raja Singh would hurt Facebook’s business prospects in India, reported the magazine. (Did Facebook The surgery is not the only reason Singh was not banned, and that is yet to decide whether the ban was necessary.) Read more: can the largest democracy in the world, another five years in office mode to bear? This business prospects are considerable. India is the largest Facebook market, with 328 million of the social media platform. About 400 million Indians are also using Facebook WhatsApp messaging service – a significant piece of the approximately 503 million Internet users in the country. The platforms have become increasingly important in Indian politics; After the 2014 elections, published What editorial claiming that the winning ways to the way he had used Facebook in his campaign. But Facebook and WhatsApp used to spread disinformation and hate speech inciting to support deadly attacks against minorities amid growing communal tensions in India, although they were the company’s efforts to crack down on the accused. In February, a video of a speech by politicians BJP Kapil Mishra was uploaded on Facebook in which he told police that if they occupy a street in Delhi protesters mostly away Muslims, his followers would do myself. Violent riots broke out within hours. (. In this case, Facebook determines the displaying its rules on incitement to evil violence and removes) WhatsApp has also been used with deadly intent in India – for example, vigilantes cow, Hindu mobs who attacked Muslims and Dalits charged with killing cows, a sacred animal in Hinduism. At least 44 people, mostly Muslims, were killed by vigilantes cow, between May 2015 and December 2018, according to Human Rights Watch. Many cow vigilante killings happened after rumors spread via WhatsApp and video of lynchings and beatings are shared through the application too often. Read more: as the remodeling pandemic India time has learned that Facebook, in an attempt to evaluate the role of an independent report gave about the impact on human rights in India, in order to spread hate speech and incitement to violence. Work on the India tests not previously reported, began before the Journal published his story. It was held by US law firm Foley Hoag and seen interviews with high-level Facebook employees and members of civil society in India, according to three people with knowledge of the matter and an e-mail is time. (A similar report on Myanmar, was published in 2018, detailed error Facebook Sedition that the previous year did not contribute to the Rohingya genocide.) Facebook declined to confirm the report. But activists who have spent years tracking and reporting hate speech by Hindu nationalists, say TIME who believe that Facebook police station is delayed needs because it does not fight to choose the members and supporters of the BJP with the government that controls its most great market. The way the company is structured, exacerbates the problem, analysts and former employees say, because the same people who also help to manage the relationship with the government, the decisions that politicians should be punished for sedition. “A central problem with Facebook is that a political org is responsible for both happy for the rules of the platform and hold” Alex Stamos governments, Official former security chief tweeted by Facebook in May. “Local policies usually heads are drawn from the political party in power and rarely are from disadvantaged ethnic groups, religions or box. This obviously decision prevents the powerful.” Some activists are frustrated as well with the privacy team Facebook-India, get around it totally hate speech began in the report. After the conversation when Thukral left, Avaaz hate relationship opted to start directly to the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. “We have the attitude of Facebook India completely frivolous, callous, uninterested,” says Zoyab that Avaaz has left since then. Another group, which reported regularly hate speech against minorities on Facebook in India, asked not called for the safety of its employees to be out of fear, and it is from 2018. In a statement, was to do the same, Facebook has confirmed some groups regularly hate speech flag in India are in contact with the headquarters of Facebook, but said it was not changing the criteria, judged by the contributions of its rules. Read more: Facebook says it never incitement to hatred as the removal. But there is a problem The revelations in the Journal of a political scandal series in India, will be officially investigated for alleged favoritism Modis party with opposition politicians called for Facebook. And the news has caused controversy within the company: In an open letter inside, Facebook employees leaders as “anti-Muslim bigotry” to denounce and do more, the vocal hatred rules are applied to ensure consistent across the platform, Reuters reports . The letter argues that there is no Muslim employees at the India political team; in response to questions from time, Facebook said it was prohibited by law from collecting such data. Facebook friends in high places While it is common for companies to hire political parties lobbyists with ties, activists say the story of employees to privacy Facebook India team, and its incentive to keep the happy government that creates a conflict of interest, if you police is hate speech by politicians. Prior to joining Facebook, Thukral had worked in the past on behalf of the BJP. However, he has been involved in decisions about how to deal with the political contributions that presenters characterized as violations of sedition rules during the elections in 2019, the former employees say TIME. like its Facebook include a page called “I support Narendra Modi.” The former Facebook employees say TIME believe that she is an important reason Thukral was discontinued in 2017 because it was seen as close to the ruling party. to win in 2013 during the campaign in the final analysis, the success of BJP national power in elections in 2014, Thukral worked to help with high-ranking officials of the Party, a pro-BJP website and Facebook page run. get the site, called Mera Bharosa ( “My confidence” in Hindi) and events are held, including a project to sign a student vote, according to interviews with the people involved and documents, seen for some time. he had no idea that a student has spontaneously said a project time Mera Bharosa, an intervention in co-ordination is carried out with the BJP was, and that he believed that working for a registration campaign of non-partisan voters. According to documents, this was a calculated strategy to hide the true intent of the organization. In early 2014, the site its name to “Bharosa mode” has changed (in the sense of “Trust” mode) and started more openly pro-BJP content to share. It is not yet clear whether Thukral was working at that time with the site. In a statement, he acknowledged in time Facebook had worked on behalf of Mera Bharosa Thukral, but denied his previous work was a conflict of interest because several people are involved in important decisions about removal. “We are aware that some of our employees have supported in the past two campaigns in India and other parts of the world,” said Facebook as part of questions issued a statement at the time in response to a detailed set. “Our understanding is that currently focuses Shivnath volunteer one of governance issues in India and not address the fundamental issues that concern you.” Now Thukral has an even bigger task. In the month of March 2020, he was promoted from his job WhatsApp Facebook India are director of public policy. In the role, experts Tech policy, New Delhi time, one of the most important tasks of saying Thukral company’s relationship with the way government is managed. It is an important task because Facebook is trying to turn the messaging application to a digital payment processor – an idea profitable, possibly worth billions of dollars. In April, Facebook announced it would pay $5.7 billion for a 10% stake in Reliance Jio, the largest telecommunications company in India, it is one of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. On a call with investors in May spoke enthusiastically about the business opportunity Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “With so many people in India engaged by WhatsApp, just think that this will be a great opportunity for us to provide a better commerce experience for people available, it is to help small businesses and the economy, and really build a big business them over “time, he said, speaking of plans WhatsApp Pay the vast network of small businesses across India to connect with Jio. “That’s why I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply in India”. Read more: as WhatsApp feeding false information before the elections in India, but the future WhatsApp as an application payments to India for final approval depends on the Controller national payments, which is still ongoing. Facebook hopes to expand in India have been set aside by a national regulatory authority before, in 2016, when the telecommunications watchdog said the country free Basics, Facebook’s plan for a free Internet are just a few sites, including his own, violate the rules of net neutrality. Thukral One of the priorities in his new role will ensure that a similar problem will not strike down Facebook pays great ambitions for WhatsApp. , No foreign company in India wants to be in the bad government books While the controller is technically independent, analysts said that Facebook is the new relationship with the richest man in India, probably makes it much easier to get approval for WhatsApp pay. “It ‘s time would be easier for Facebook to get that approval, with Ambani on his side,” says Neil Shah, vice president of Research counterpoint, an industry analyst firm. And good will of the government itself is too important, analysts say. “No foreign company in India in Bad Government books,” says James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj. “Facebook would like to have good relations with the Indian government and is likely to do things twice, thinking that annoy them.” The Indian government has shown before that he is not afraid of the dreams of foreign technology companies to squeeze. In July, after a geopolitical dispute with China, which has banned dozens of applications, including Chinese TikTok and WeChat. “It ‘a crawl toward a sort of digital protectionism in India,” says Crabtree. “So, in the back of the Facebook-mind it is the fact that the government could easily do against foreign tech in general and Facebook in particular, especially when they are seen picking out great politician.” With hundreds of millions of users already in India, and hundreds of millions more that we have not smartphones, but may in the near future, Facebook has an incentive to avoid this possibility. “Facebook said in the past that is so that hate speech on its platform has no commercial interest,” said Chinmayi Arun, a resident fellow at the Yale Law School, that technology platforms examines the regulation. “It ”s obvious from what is happening in India, this is not right.” Facebook says it is working hard to combat hate speech. “We want to make it clear that we condemn hatred in any form,” Mohan, CEO of Facebook said in India, in his August 21 blog post. “We have removed and content of public figures continue to remove written in India, if it violates our Community Guidelines”. But diatribes washing remains a formidable challenge to Facebook. During a staff meeting in June it showed Zuckerberg Mishra February speech to the Delhi riots, without naming him, as a clear example of a contribution that must be removed. The original video Mishra’s speech was taken just after it has been loaded. But another version of the video, with more than 5,600 points of view and a long list of comments of support remained below the line for six months, until the moment, it is obvious Facebook in August list.
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