On the 3rd of September, Facebook banned T. Raja Singh, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP.)
The BJP MLA was banned from Facebook due to his hate speech through status, posts and comments.
According to sources, MLA Raja posted violent content, spread hate speech through his posts and violated guidelines of Facebook.
Raja Singh is the MLA of Goshamahal constituency in Telangana.
A Facebook spokesperson said, “We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our policy prohibiting those that promote or engage in violence and hate from having a presence on our platform.
The development comes a day after Shashi Tharoor, an INC leader, questioned Facebook officials before a parliamentary panel on alleged political bias from both sides of the divide.
On the 2nd of September, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Shashi Tharoor held a meeting with Facebook’s India head Ajit Mohan.
The matter became controversial after the Wall Street Journal, alleged Facebook of supporting BJP MLAs. The WSJ also alleged that Facebook’s Public Policy executive Ankhi Das had shown support for the BJP in the past
Amit Malviya, the Head of the BJP’s IT Cell, said, “What constitutes hate speech in India will be decided by our constitutional framework and extant rules. It must be applied fairly to all irrespective of their political affiliation. Sonia Gandhi, whose divisive speech streamed live on Facebook, which led to wide-scale rioting, death, and destruction in Delhi recently, is equally guilty as is someone else. We can’t have double standards.”
This is not the first time, opposition parties and others, alleged Facebook of being biased towards the ruling Government of India, the BJP.
The Indian National Congress (INC,) the Trinamool Congress and many left wing supporters said the social media platforms show a positive bias towards the BJP.
The INC even wrote to Facebook Founder and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Mark Zukerberg twice complaining of the biased attitude.
Meanwhile, the BJP denied all the allegations and lashed out at its critics for making allegations.
Stay tuned for further updates.
