IT panel summons FB, govt officials over polls ‘manipulation’

THE PANEL SAID IT ALSO WANTS TO HEAR THE VIEWS OF FACEBOOK INDIA ON THE SUBJECT “SAFEGUARDING CITIZENS’ RIGHTS”

NEW DELHI: Opposition Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor-led parliamentary standing committee on information technology (IT) has called Facebook and electronics and IT ministry officials to discuss the prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms with special emphasis on the security of women in the digital space.

In its agenda, the panel said it also wants to hear the views of the “representatives of Facebook India on the subject ‘Safeguarding citizens’ rights”. It added the same applies to the ministry officials.

This comes days after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday last alleged social media giants were being used to “hack democracy” and urged the government to end the “systematic influence and interference of Facebook and other social media giants” on electoral politics.

Speaking in Lok Sabha, she called it an issue of paramount importance while referring to the rising danger of social media abuse.

She added companies such as Facebook and Twitter were used increasingly to shape political narratives by leaders, parties, and their proxies.

Gandhi’s comments followed an Al Jazeera article that said Facebook undercut the Opposition’s influence on the platform ahead of the 2019 national elections and gave a distinct advantage to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The article was based on an analysis of 536,070 political advertisements on Facebook and Instagram from February 2019 to November 2020. It assessed the influence of Facebook’s political advertising policies on the elections.

Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter did not comment.

Without directly referring to the article, Gandhi said bias by platforms such as Facebook has repeatedly come to the notice of the public.

“...global social media companies are not providing a level playing field to all parties.” She added the blatant manner in which social harmony was being disturbed with the connivance of the ruling establishment is dangerous for democracy.