Social media giant Facebook is expected to face more trouble in India after a former employee accused the US-based company of failing to disclose the existence and removal of “a politically-sophisticated network of more than a thousand actors working to influence” the assembly elections in Delhi earlier this year.
A former data scientist at Facebook detailed the allegations in a 6,600-word memo, according to a report by US-based online news portal Buzzfeed, which specified the coordinated inauthentic behaviour on the platform during the polls.
The revelations have come at a time when Facebook has already been pulled into a political slugfest between India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition Congress party regarding its alleged political bias.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won the Delhi elections in February, is expected to be dragged into the controversy now.
“It emerges that Facebook’s platform was exploited by a sophisticated network of actors, who in a coordinated effort, misused the platform to influence the election outcome. AAP won the elections. Facebook, it seems, was aware of this network and its operations but didn’t act. They have much to answer on their policies and if they are applying it uniformly,” said BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya.
AAP spokesperson Sanjay Singh did not respond to multiple calls and messages seeking comment.
A Facebook spokesperson said that the company had built specialized teams, working with leading experts, to stop bad actors from abusing its systems, resulting in the removal of more than 100 networks for coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
Meanwhile, internet activists expressed frustration about the incident and cautioned against the “concerning development” devolving into yet another political drama.
India needs to take concrete policy and legal action to hold social media platforms such as Facebook accountable for a lack of transparency on political content moderation during elections, they said.
“This development is a result of a regulatory failure to take action against social media platforms. There is no transparency by Facebook and that’s the core issue. Every time it becomes a political drama, the benefits are accrued by Silicon Valley firms because the status quo is maintained – the absence of regulatory oversight on election integrity,” said Apar Gupta, executive director at Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights organization.
The Election Commission of India signed a self-regulatory code with social media companies ahead of the general elections last year, but the code enforces no legal obligation on removal or disclosure, and the communication between ECI and companies is managed by industry lobby Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
“This is not acceptable. India is the only large democracy which has no cross-political party commitment to tackle this problem. Facebook hides behind political party fights in India,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia policy director at Access Now, a non-profit that defends and extends digital rights of people around the world.
Earlier this month, Facebook faced three hours of tough questioning by a Parliamentary panel on IT about its functioning in India.
The panel ultimately posed more than 100 questions to the company, demanding answers in writing.
India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has also written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing its “India managing director” and other staff of the company of subscribing to “a particular political belief”.
Facebook has been under the spotlight for two years, ever since it was revealed in a data leak in 2018 that millions of Facebook users’ personal data had been harvested without consent by UK-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, predominantly for political advertising.
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