• It was long suspected but now the Wall Street Journal based in New York has done an investigation and proven it.
• Facebook  India has biased hate-speech rules.
• They allow Islamophobia to flourish.
• They favor the ruling party of India.

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Facebook is reluctant to apply its very own rules to remove hate speeches from its platform when the person or population targeted are Muslims of India.

The fear amongst Facebook’s top officials

Facebook has come out with a policy that its team would mark and remove any hate speeches on its platform. They do this when there is any hate speech against the ruling BJP party and government or Hindus.

But Islamophobic speeches continue to remain on Facebook and spread through it. This is what an investigation done by the Wall Street Journal based in New York, the USA has shown.

WSJ investigation has revealed that Facebook tolerates problematic statements about Muslims in India. These statements continue to spread via Facebook.

Because the top officials at Facebook are afraid that if he or she remove the hate speech against Muslims, it would anger the ruling pro-Hindu nationalist BJP party of India.

Hence, Facebook allows any hate speech originating from the ruling party official to remain on Facebook. They do not delete it as per the policy of that platform.

Examples of hate speeches not removed from Facebook

Also, WSJ proved it with some examples. They showed that Facebook India is biased and favors the ruling party.

BJP Minister, T. Raja Singh had said that all Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot dead, he called Muslims traitors and also threatened to raze to the ground mosques in India.

Facebook internally flagged his Islamophobic remarks as one inciting violence. But then these speeches continue to remain on Facebook.

They did not remove it even though T. Raja Singh has a long history of making such hateful comments against Muslims.

The reason was that the top officials favored the ruling party and did not want to anger it.

Also, read A new report! Facebook moderators at risk of PTSD and resort to drugs and sex at the workplace to forget the pain!

The top officials and what Wall Street Journal found out?

WSJ investigation revealed that Facebook’s top public policy executive in India, Ankhi Das took the decision to not remove T. Raja Singh’s hate speech on Facebook and it continued to circulate unabated.

The investigation revealed that she did this because she wanted to maintain a good relationship between Facebook and the ruling BJP party.

WSJ reported:

“Ms. Das, whose job also includes lobbying India’s government on Facebook’s behalf, told staff members that punishing violations by politicians from Mr. Modi’s party would damage the company’s business prospects in the country,”

The trend to appease the ruling party out of fear is a larger pattern on Facebook. The US newspaper adds that Facebook by ignoring these hate speeches is allowing the party’s increasingly blatant Islamophobic comments to remain.

This leads to India’s Muslim community being left with increasing threats of mob violence due to the Hindu Nationalist propaganda.

Thus the BJP is misusing the mainstream media and social media to state that its Muslim community is responsible for the country’s problems including that of COVID-19.

However, the top officials of Facebook shut down any Facebook page that talked against the current government of India.

Following the article and revelation of WSJ about Facebook, it hurriedly removed the post of Raja Singh from its platform.

Also read Let’s Make It Facebook Official; Facebook Dating Is Expanding All Over The Globe But How Is It Different From Other Apps?

Source: WSJ, Morocco World News