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Amid a full-blown controversy over its policies, Facebook on Monday said it prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence. In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said the company enforces policies globally without regard to anyone's political position or affiliation. The statement comes after the Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that Facebook ignored applying its hate speech rules to politicians of the ruling party in India.
"We prohibit hate speech and content that incites violence and we enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position/party affiliation. We are making progress on enforcement and conduct regular audits of our process to ensure fairness and accuracy," a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying by ANI.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi too quoted the report and accused the BJP and RSS of spreading "fake news" using Facebook and WhatsApp to influence the electorate. "BJP & RSS control Facebook & Whatsapp in India. They spread fake news and hatred through it and use it to influence the electorate. Finally, the American media has come out with the truth about Facebook," Gandhi had said in a tweet. The Congress also demanded a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the charges mentioned in the report, saying they threaten the foundation of Indian democracy and need to be investigated. It triggered a sharp reaction from Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who reminded the opposition party of the Cambridge Analytica issue.
"Losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP and RSS. You were caught red-handed in alliance with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook to weaponise data before the elections and now have the gall to question us," Prasad shot back in a tweet.
In the report published on Friday, the US newspaper cited interviews with unnamed Facebook insiders to claim that one of its senior India policy executives intervened in internal communication to stop a permanent ban on a BJP MLA from Telangana after he allegedly made communally charged posts.
