Facebook, Under Pressure in India, Bans Politician for Hate Speech
September 03 2020 - 12:20AM
Dow Jones News
By Newley Purnell and Rajesh Roy
NEW DELHI-- Facebook Inc. banned a politician from India's
ruling party for violating its policies against hate speech, amid a
growing political storm over its handling of extremist content on
its platform.
The removal of the politician, T. Raja Singh, is an about-face
for the company and one that will be politically tricky in India,
its biggest market by number of users.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Facebook's head
of public policy in the country, Ankhi Das, had opposed banning Mr.
Singh under Facebook's "dangerous individual" prohibitions. In
communications to Facebook staffers, she said punishing violations
by politicians from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party could hurt
the company's business interests in the country.
At the same time, Facebook is under pressure around the world to
crack down on alleged hate speech.
Lawmakers in India's opposition Congress party earlier called
for hearings to examine whether Facebook has bent its own rules to
favor Mr. Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
In Facebook posts and public appearances, Mr. Singh, a member of
Mr. Modi's BJP, has said Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot,
called Muslims traitors and threatened to destroy mosques. He had
hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook and Instagram.
At least five Facebook profiles dedicated to Mr. Singh, which
once had more than 300,000 followers, showed a message Thursday
saying "This Content Isn't Available Right Now." Facebook groups
devoted to him had also disappeared. His Instagram profile
displayed a message saying "Sorry, this page isn't available. The
link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been
removed."
"We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our
policy prohibiting those that promote or engage in violence and
hate from having a presence on our platform," a Facebook spokesman
told the Journal after Mr. Singh's accounts disappeared. "The
process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is
what led us to this decision."
Ms. Das didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A
Facebook spokesman previously acknowledged that Ms. Das had raised
concerns about the political fallout from designating Mr. Singh a
"dangerous individual, " but said her opposition wasn't the sole
factor in the company's decision to let him remain on the
platform.
Mr. Singh has defended the propriety of many of his statements
and suggested some of the inflammatory material posted to his
accounts was the result of a hacking. He didn't immediately respond
to a request for comment Thursday.
Jeff Horwitz contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 03, 2020 00:05 ET (04:05 GMT)
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