The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, on Wednesday held a meeting to discuss the alleged bias exhibited by the Facebook India team towards right-wing leaders in the country.
The agenda of the meeting was "safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space".
During the three-and-a-half-hour meeting, the panel deposed Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan. According to sources, the panel posed 90 questions before the Facebook executive. The social media giant is yet to respond.
The panel will resume the deposition at a later unspecified date when it will once again question Facebook representatives and depose representatives of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Meanwhile, Facebook issued a statement wherein it thanked the Parliamentary Committee and added that it remains committed to being an "open and transparent" platform.
"We thank the Honorable Parliamentary Committee for their time. We remain committed to be an open and transparent platform, and to giving people voice and allowing them to express themselves freely," Facebook said in its statement.
Parliamentary Panel meet on Facebook | All that has happened:
9.30 pm: Sources have revealed that FB India chief has told the panel that he will submit the response to 90 questions posed to him in writing. Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan said that he and the social media platform are neutral. While the BJP MPs present at the panel meet accused Ajit Mohan and some senior FB employees of links with Congress, opposition MPs raised the links of FB officials with RSS and ABVP.
When the BJP MPs cited the letter written by Ravi Shankar Prasad accusing him of political bias, Ajit Mohan said that he was neutral.
Sources said that accusations related to hate speech were also raised during the deposition.
8.16 pm: Panel chair Shashi Tharoor says deposition to resume later. "In response to overwhelming media interest in the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on InformationTechnology that just adjourned, this is all I can say: we met for some three and a half hours and unanimously agreed to resume the discussion later, including with representatives of Facebook," Shashi Tharoor said in a tweet.
7.40 pm: According to sources, the parliamentary panel posed 90 questions to Facebook during the two-hour deposition. Facebook yet to respond.
7.30 pm: FB India MD Ajit Mohan's deposition before parliamentary panel ends. The deposition had gone on for two hours. Details of deposition yet to emerge.
5.30 pm: Facebook India chief Ajit Mohan appears before parliamentary panel, which is discussing alleged misuse of social media platforms
4.50 pm: Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan waits outside the panel meeting room for deposition. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Nikhil Pahwa also present in the waiting room. They have also been summoned by the panel along with the representatives of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
4.30 pm: Parliamentary Standing Committee meet begins. The agenda of the meeting is to discuss the alleged bias exhibited by the Facebook India team towards right-wing leaders in the country.
Political slugfest on Facebook controversy
Shashi Tharoor's announcement that the panel would like to hear from Facebook about the report published in an international newspaper claiming that the social media platform ignored applying its hate-speech rules to politicians of the BJP in India, evoked strong reaction from BJP members of the panel.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey alleged that the Congress leader has been using the platform to further his and his party's political agenda and even demanded his removal as chairman of the panel.
A fresh political slugfest has started on the matter with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday claiming that international media has "exposed" Facebook and WhatsApp's "brazen assault" on India's democracy and social harmony.
"No one, let alone a foreign company, can be allowed to interfere in our nation's affairs. They must be investigated immediately and when found guilty, punished," Gandhi tweeted.
IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday wrote to Mark Zuckerberg accusing the social media platform's employees of supporting people from a political predisposition that lost successive elections, and "abusing" Prime Minister and senior cabinet ministers.
In a three-page letter to Facebook Chief Executive Zuckerberg, Prasad alleged "bias and inaction" by individuals in Facebook India team on complaints by people supportive of right-of-centre ideology.