INDIA alliance demands Meta, Google be neutral during 2024 Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi: In a letter to the social media giants Meta and Alphabet, the Opposition INDIA coalition expressed disapproval of their purported involvement in creating social discord in India.

On Wednesday, the alliance sent separate letters to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta. Alphabet is the parent corporation of Google and YouTube, whereas Meta controls Facebook and Instagram.

Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal wrote the letters to the two businesses on behalf of the Opposition alliance after The Washington Post claimed in an editorial on October 8 that social media platforms in India have "become conveyor belts for hate" under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Scroll. in reported.

In the letter dated Wednesday, Meta was accused of being responsible for instigating communal hatred in India. “Further, we have data that shows algorithmic moderation and suppression of Opposition leaders’ content on your platform while also promoting ruling party content,” it alleged.

The INDIA alliance added: “Such blatant partisanship and bias towards one political formation by a private foreign company is tantamount to interfering in India’s democracy, one that we in the INDIA alliance will not take lightly.”

In light of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the coalition requested Zuckerberg to make sure Meta's operations in India maintain their neutrality.

The letter also mentioned a piece headlined "Under India's pressure, Facebook let propaganda and hate speech thrive" that appeared in The Washington Post on September 26.

According to the article, almost three years prior, a Facebook team had claimed that the Chinar Corps of the Indian Army was responsible for a massive social media operation that used hundreds of fake accounts to denounce Kashmiri journalists for sedition and separatism and to applaud a crackdown by security forces in the region.

The story did, however, report that Facebook executives in New Delhi opposed attempts to remove the pages used in the operation, citing their desire to avoid provoking the Indian government.

“Those objections staved off action for a full year while the Indian Army unit continued to spread disinformation that put Kashmiri journalists in danger,” the article said.

In a similar letter addressed to Pichai, the INDIA alliance referred to an article in The Washington Post titled “He live-streamed his attacks on Indian Muslims. YouTube gave him an award”.

The article explained the “emerging phenomenon of cow vigilante streamers”, focusing in particular on Bajrang Dal member and double murder accused Monu Manesar. “Last October, Manesar received a ‘Silver Creator’ award from YouTube for reaching 100,00 subscribers and posed with his plaque next to a cow,” the article noted.

The INDIA alliance also mentioned that the article detailed how this “vile, communally divisive propaganda is carried out using YouTube by BJP members and supporters”.

However, in the two letters, the coalition said it was confident that Meta and Alphabet “also yearn for a harmonious India that the Mahatma wished for”.