The Minister also called for India-specific Community Guidelines and took issue with Facebook’s “outsourcing of fact-checking to third party fact checkers.” (File/PTI)

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Tuesday wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, raising “serious concerns” that Facebook India management deleted right-wing pages and “reduced their reach” before the 2019 elections, that “employees are on record abusing government officials”, and that “bias and inaction are seemingly a direct outcome of the dominant political beliefs of individuals in your Facebook India team.”

The letter stated: “The spate of recent anonymous, source-based reports is nothing but an internal power struggle within your company for an ideological hegemony. No other logic can explain how facts are being spun by the selective leaks from within your company to portray an alternate reality … This collusion of a group of Facebook employees with international media is giving a free run to malevolent vested interests to cast aspersions on the democratic process of our great democracy.”

It also said: “I have been informed that in the run up to the 2019 General Elections in India, there was a concerted effort by Facebook India management to not just delete pages or substantially reduce their reach but also offer no recourse or right of appeal to affected people who are supportive of the right-of-centre ideology. I am also aware that dozens of emails written to Facebook management received no response. The above documented cases of bias and inaction are seemingly a direct outcome of the dominant political beliefs of individuals in your Facebook India team.”

The letter comes two weeks after a Wall Street Journal article reported that a top Facebook executive in India “opposed applying hate-speech rules” to at least four individuals and groups linked with the BJP despite the fact that they were “flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence.”

On Tuesday, The Indian Express reported on emails from BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya to that executive and another senior Facebook official to take action against 44 pages opposed to the party, reinstate 17 pro-BJP deleted pages, monetise two right-wing pages, and “shield” eight pro-BJP pages.

The media reports have led to debates within the IT Parliamentary Standing Committee about summoning Facebook India Managing Director Ajit Mohan, who will be appearing in tomorrow’s hearing.

Congress has also written Zuckerberg two letters regarding the ruling party’s alleged misuse of the platform and an “evidence of bias”, calling for a “high-level inquiry” into the company’s India leadership. The Delhi Legislative Assembly has also decided to summon the company’s top officials, AAP leader and committee chairman Raghav Chadha told The Indian Express.

Denying the charges, Facebook India last week insisted that it is a “non-partisan platform” and that it will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India that are in violation of its standards.

Prasad in his letter also called for India-specific Community Guidelines and took issue with Facebook’s “outsourcing of fact-checking to third party fact checkers.” “How can Facebook absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation and instead out-source this to shady organizations with no credibility?” the letter stated.

The letter said: “Facebook employees are on record abusing the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet Ministers of India while still working in Facebook India and managing important positions. It is doubly problematic when the bias of individuals becomes an inherent bias of the platform.”

The letter also said that “credible media reports” find that the “Facebook India team, right from the India Managing Director to other senior officials, is dominated by people who belong to a particular political belief. People from this political predisposition have been overwhelmingly defeated by the people of India in successive free and fair elections. After having lost all democratic legitimacy, they are trying to discredit India’s democratic process by dominating the decision-making apparatus of important social media platforms.”