As another article alleges BJP bias in Facebook, Cong writes to Zuckerberg seeking details of probe

NEW DELHI: With a report in Time magazine alleging Facebook-BJP nexus, following a similar article by Wall Street Journal, Congress Saturday demanded a JPC investigation into the allegations that the social media giant was favouring the BJP government and lenient on hate speech for favours with its top India executives playing a liason role.
AICC general secretary K C Venugopal shot off a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg asking for details on steps being taken to investigate the revelations made in the American publications. This is the second letter by Congress in less than a fortnight.
“We urge you to let us know what steps your company is planning to take to investigate these matters... we will also be pursuing legislative and judicial actions in India to ensure a foreign company cannot continue to cause social disharmony in our nation for pursuit of private profits," the letter said, alleging WhatsApp has willingly allowed itself to be appropriated for hate speech and tearing of India’s social harmony.
Speaking at a virtual function, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi accused Modi government of throwing India off track by giving primacy to “dictatorship over democracy” and of following the divide and rule strategy to spread hatred in society.
Congress said consecutive reports in US publications revealed Facebook had helped the ruling BJP manipulate public opinion. It said Time magazine has disclosed that WhatsApp was planning to launch its “digital payment operations” to exploit its base of 40 crore users in India and was dependent on Modi government for approvals and licence for the venture. It named a WhatsApp executive in its report.
Tagging the Time article, Rahul Gandhi tweeted to allege that proposed payment operations was the reason behind WhatsApp-BJP nexus.
AICC spokespersons Pawan Khera and Pravin Chakravarty said the JPC probe sought must go into how Facebook manipulated voter opinion and allowed hate speech, and demanded that the government should not give approvals to WhatsApp for its payment channel till the probe is complete and action taken.