Over 40 NGOs and civil society organisations have called for Facebook India’s public policy head Ankhi Das to be placed on administrative leave and an audit of Facebook India. The letter also calls on CEO Mark Zuckerberg to work with civil society to “address dangerous content” on the platform.
“Facebook should not be complicit in more offline violence, much less another genocide, but the pattern of inaction displayed by the company is reckless to the point of complicity. The demands in this letter could help avert that disaster,” the letter states.
The letter, marked to Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Oversight Board and a few other Facebook employees, references pieces by both the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine.
A Wall Street Journal piece had said that Facebook ignored applying its hate speech rules to BJP politicians including at the behest of Das as it would damage the company’s business prospects in the country. In a follow up article, WSJ reported that Facebook did not take action after it found that the party was circumventing transparency requirements.
“The link between content on your platform and offline violence in India is no secret, but two articles from The Wall Street Journal have revealed disturbing details about the problem,” the letter states.
It says that this is not the first time Facebook is being pulled up for its role in offline violence in India and in other countries, and cites the examples of the United States, Myanmar and India.
The letter states that content posted on Facebook has spurred mass riots and the events should have been enough for a human rights audit.
“...mass riots in India spurred on by content posted on Facebook have been occurring for at least seven years. A mislabeled video on social media was instrumental in stoking the horrific 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in which 62 people were killed. A BJP politician was even arrested for sharing the video. This should have been enough to prompt Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook to take a step back from operations and conduct a human rights audit to ensure Facebook had the necessary corporate competencies and had taken human rights into account,” it states. Despite this, the letter says, the company decided to expand in India “without hesitation”.
“Since then, right-wing ministers and officials have used the platform to openly call for shooting Bangladeshi migrants in India and to spin Islamophobic narratives of ‘love jihad’ and ‘cow slaughter,’ instigating violence against India’s minorities,” it also adds.
It says that while employees at Facebook should have their freedom of expression, Das has “gone too far in publicly highlighting her allegiance to the BJP”. It cites instances where she wrote an article praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and previously, his use of social media, which it said was inappropriate “to indicate that kind of bias publicly when it can have the result of emboldening those bad actors into (rightfully) believing they will get preferential treatment”.
The letter makes three demands, which it says is to secure marginalised groups in the country:
Take steps to maintain independence of ongoing human rights audit of India operations, which it said must be removed from the influence of the India office and must be directly overseen the Menlo Park office and groups with expertise in caste and religious bias.
“The audit must review both the human rights impact of Facebook India’s policy programs and examine the platform’s role in propagating hate, casteism and Islamophobia, and violence by Hindutva groups, politicians and officials, and social media influencers,” it says.
Placing Ankhi Das under leave pending an audit of Facebook India and the statements reported by the Wall Street Journal. If it reinforces the details as reported, it demands that she be removed from the role.
That Facebook make actionable commitments and engage in transparent dialogue.
“Facebook should make as much of the audit findings public as possible and commit to working with civil society to find solutions to problems identified in the audit. Ensuring clear intervention channels in the future as well as appropriate training for content moderators and other relevant staff should be part of that dialogue,” it says.
The letter’s signatories include the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, Witness, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Fight For The Future, Indian American Muslim Council, ad.watch, Media Justice, and others.