Ajit Mohan had to appear before 18 members of the Shashi Tharoor-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology and answer at least 90 questions concerning the social media platform’s hate speech policy
The Congress leader Shashi Tharoor-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, on September 2, grilled Facebook India managing director Ajit Mohan for two hours.
Mohan had to appear before 18 members of the panel and answer at least 90 questions concerning the social media platform’s hate speech policy and allegations that it is partial towards the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, reported India Today.
In response to overwhelming media interest in the meeting of the ParliamentaryStandingCommittee on InformationTechnology that just adjourned, this is all I can say: we met for some three&a half hours & unanimously agreed to resume the discussion later, incl w/ reps of @Facebook.
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 2, 2020
Facebook has been facing immense heat from netizens and politicians alike since the US newspaper Wall Street Journal had reported last month that the social media platform intentionally overlooked hate speech posted by BJP leaders and other right-wing groups.
It was later learned that Ankhi Das, Facebook India’s policy executive, is guilty of making “internal postings over several years” and that she had expressly pledged support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the elections. Both the allegations are being probed by the parliamentary panel too.