The BJP-Facebook Connection: A Lookback At Series Of Allegations

Although, this is not the first time that the social media giant has been accused of surreptitiously siding with the ruling BJP.

After a report by the Wall Street Journal on how a top Facebook India official allegedly opposed banning a BJP politician for hate posts and how several other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups were spared despite posting incendiary content, the ruling BJP has come under heavy fire. Facebook has once again invited criticism over its hate speech policies after it was earlier forced to correct its policies post anti-racism demonstrations in the United States.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, after the report by WSJ came out, hit out at both Facebook and BJP, claiming that the BJP and its parent organisation RSS control Facebook and Whatsapp in India. Gandhi also went on to add that they use these platforms for spreading fake news and influencing the electorate.

Although, this is not the first time that the social media giant has been accused of surreptitiously siding with the ruling BJP.

De Facto Campaign Partner

According to a report by Bloomberg in 2017, Facebook employees in India had become “de facto campaign workers”. The report claimed that Facebook “helped develop the online presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.

“As Modi’s social media reach grew, his followers increasingly turned to Facebook and WhatsApp to target harassment campaigns against his political rivals. Hindu extremists who back Modi’s party have used social media to issue death threats against Muslims or critics of the government,” the report said.

Ankhi Das & Her Connections

Ankhi Das, who has been named in the WSJ report, also found a mention in the Guardian‘s report in 2016. According to the report, Das, who works as Policy Head for Facebook India, had very good connections in the Modi government. One Facebook executive told the Guardian, “We used to joke that it was like she was Modi’s granddaughter.” Her presence seemed to open any door, the executive told the Guardian.

Throttling Anti-Establishment Reports

In 2018, Caravan magazine did a story on how an investigation it had done on allegations of corruption against Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah had been strangled by Facebook. Given Facebook’s popularity as a publisher that most news outlets now rely on, the throttling of Caravan’s report highlighted the power of the platform.

Biased Employees

Newsclick carried a five-part investigation the very same year, in which it reported how “senior employees of Facebook in India have in the past worked, and continue to work, very closely with the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi since 2011”.

Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien, after BJP’s historical sweep in 2019 general polls, had claimed in parliament that Facebook’s senior management in India were de facto campaign managers for the BJP. Derek O’Brien said: “Facebook censored anti-BJP news and put other parties at jeopardy and I say this with all responsibility. The Facebook algorithm censors anti-BJP content.”

Elections and Fake News

According to a case study reported by the New Indian Express after general elections in 2019, “The most significant platforms for problematic content have been closed networks such as WhatsApp and private Facebook groups.” According to the study, during 2019 elections, hateful articles were shared more than three lakh times and 15 lakh shares were connected to extremely biased stories, likely to be reflecting the sharer’s personal opinions on topics.

Used To Suppress Dissent

The Verge reported on the sudden surge in hate posts on Facebook after the Indian government laid out the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam. According to the report, the human rights group Avaaz, which covered 800 Facebook posts related to Assam, said comments and posts that called Bengali Muslims “pigs,” “terrorists,” “dogs,” “rapists,” and “criminals,” — seemingly in violation of Facebook’s standards on hate speech — were shared nearly 100,000 times and viewed at least 5.4 million times. As per Avaaz,  as of September 2019, Facebook had removed just 96 of the 213 posts and comments that the organization reported.

“Facebook is being used as a megaphone for hate, pointed directly at vulnerable minorities in Assam, many of whom could be made stateless within months,” Alaphia Zoyab, senior campaigner at Avaaz said.

The Monetary Aspects

Why did Facebook allow and continues to allow BJP and its supporters to have a free hand while operating on the platform? Though it’s true that the social media giant doesn’t want to ruin the relationship with the Indian government since India is such a vast market for Zuckerberg to tap, the monetary outcomes of going easy on the ruling dispensation are also favourable for Zuckerberg. The recent investments made by him in Ambani’s Jio, who is considered close to the Prime Minister, make it evident that Zuckerberg is not entirely bothered about the hate posts as long as the money keeps flowing in for him in one or other form.

The similar example can be cited referring to the Facebook’s Ad Library data around the general elections in India. The BJP spent the most for campaigning on Facebook, almost 37 times more than its arch rival, Congress party.

Facebook made Rs. 228.5 million from political parties and affiliated channels, by sharing political ads on its network, out of which BJP’s share in that revenue was at around Rs. 36.8 million. Comparatively, the prime challenger to the BJP in the election, Congress party, spent less than a million.

BJP’s spend was even higher if it is combined with its affiliate channels — like Bharat Ki Mann Ki Baat and My First Vote — at a whopping Rs. 140 million.

To sum it up, it would not be wrong to conclude that the Facebook-BJP relationship works on “quid pro quo” and that’s where the bias by the social media giant towards the BJP comes from.