New Delhi:
In the middle of a huge controversy over reports alleging a Facebook executive was biased towards members of the ruling BJP, the government has written to Mark Zuckerberg.
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a sharp letter to the Facebook founder, alleges that employees of the social media giant “are on record abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet ministers” while still working in Facebook India and managing important positions.
The IT minister wrote he had been told that in the run-up to the 2019 election, “there was a concerted effort by the 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”.
The minister’s allegations have emerged at a time opposition parties, especially the Congress, have seized on US media articles suggesting Facebook’s bias while dealing with posts from members of the BJP or the rightwing.