Facebook’s ties to India’s ruling party complicate its fight against hate speech
time.com
time.com
source: https://internetfreedom.in/joint-letter-to-twitter-about-rem...
Source? Tiktok ban was a geopolitical play due to recent India-China tensions and the reason given was "national security". Here's the official press release: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=1635206
>Indian Population doesn't take digital world seriously,
as: Indian population do not think nor understand deeper, father enough to foresee these risks.
Does the average Indian person even consciously reflect on Facebook being an American company? I get the impression that for so much of the developing world where Facebook/Whatsapp/Instagram are just about the only internet people know (because these sites don’t count against their mobile data, because they don’t even have e-mail and this is the only way they communicate with people, etc.), people don’t even think about where all this infrastructure comes from. It’s just “the internet”, and it exists with no particular origin or nationality like the air they breathe or the rain that falls from the sky.
It knows which side its bread is buttered, and is not going to rock the boat against a sitting president.
I went through the article and while I don't rule out the possibility of ideological bias in an org, it seems that they are reaching for it a bit. Like the first instance itself that was mentioned in the article.
> Facebook said in a statement to TIME. “We failed to remove upon initial review, which was a mistake on our part.”
I am not a FB employee but if they have a two step process for removing some posts and say the second step in some cases is creating an issue on the ticketing system. By Occam's razor the simplest explanation can be easily that what FB is saying is the truth, in mid/big companies, issue trackers can easily be the places where things can go to die.
I have personally seen issues being left unaddressed for years. It can happen, and if we pick selective instances to paint a story, it might not be the complete picture.
Though as I mentioned earlier as well, they very well can have a bias if they have hired individuals with the same ideological background which is true for all types of orgs including old media houses.
> Yet Mr. Singh, a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, is still active on Facebook and Instagram, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers. The company’s top public-policy executive in the country, Ankhi Das, opposed applying the hate-speech rules to Mr. Singh and at least three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence, said the current and former employees.
> Ms. Das, whose job also includes lobbying India’s government on Facebook’s behalf, told staff members that punishing violations by politicians from Mr. Modi’s party would damage the company’s business prospects in the country, Facebook’s biggest global market by number of users, the current and former employees said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-poli...
There has been some discussion of the effects of Cambridge Analytica on the Brexit referendum and UK elections. However, in the UK, traditional media ownership and cronyism is more of a serious problem.
Once it's back on track, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's management have a good chance of having arrest warrants issued if they don't start actually testifying and cooperating.
How you ask? The media commonly called as Modi Media blames EVERYTHING on the opposing parties
India is#1 in corona casesper day, who is to blame? Congress. Why? They are soreading fear!
And now they've started using a suicide by a Film actor to stop corona news altogether.
If you look at Hindi and English news they're focused on spreading conspiracies about a dead guy and his girlfriend like gf smoked drugs etc
Just because the Indian population has realized what rubbish the Indian Congress party, it's affiliates were ( basically a KGB satellite) doesn't mean they are brainwashed.
Just because Indian population doesn't like the game where all the money is for select few and rest are all poor ( communism) doesn't mean it's brainwashed.
Just because Indian population doesn't reward the those who refuse to condemn the ethnic cleansing of pagans/non monotheists doesn't mean it's brainwashed.
Just people you can label Indian population as brainwashed doesn't mean it is.
I van quote 2 quarters under Congress when GDP was 10
Under Modiji unemployment is at a 45yr high!
GDP is at a 5yr low and the economy is being driven underground and the new lows are beating the old lows with utter incompetence shown by the central govt.
Also we are now the #1 country by new cases. We are the only Asian country where Corona is out of control
If Congress was rubbish and we voted thes morons to power, I want rubbish congress back
It helps that one can use it to play to their gallery by appearing to stick it to China. There had been recent incursions by the Chinese well inside Indian borders. The ruling party has been trying to cover that up and needed some token resistance to showcase.
Given the mutually cuddly relations between PM and Zuckerberg, the ban of TikTok is not really that surprising.
India is not concerned about US Government spying on them, so much.
All large Chinese companies have strong ties to the CCP (they have internal staffers who are party members, essentially acting as internal party oversight). Ergo, TT is definitely an organ of the state. It's just a matter of 'how much' in practicality.
So TT gets the ban.
As of 2019 - 70% of Chinese business had 'CCP organs' placed within the company for oversight, and Xi wants to put it to at least 95% very soon. [1]
From the Guardian: "Central Organisation Department, the party’s personnel body, found that 68% of China’s private companies had party bodies by 2016, and 70% of foreign enterprises. Although these figures sound high, they don’t match the targets the party has set for itself. In Xi’s old stamping ground of Zhejiang, for example, officials set a target in August 2018 to have cells inside 95% of private businesses."
There is no ambiguity here: while the state may allow private enterprises to manage day-to-day affairs, all private businesses are subject to controls and scrutiny by the CCP - directly from agents within the company - so that they meet CCP objectives.
Given that, all Chinese companies are de-facto CCP companies from the perspective of national security and strategic policy.
The parallel would be Trump putting a 'special team' of CIA or Republicans inside every American company to ensure oversight of his agenda.
This is very material to the nature of Social Media operations and global influence.
Edit: which is why India et. al. are going to be much more concerned about TikTok than other apps and that the primary concern is not issues over speech.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/china-business...
What Facebook and WhatsApp have enabled are convenient and useful for those in power. So while there may probably be some words here and there, we can’t expect a lot of change on the ground.
Disappointingly, the Indian Supreme Court is also lethargic and chooses to look at more trivial matters than give importance to things that could affect the freedom and political landscape for generations — examples are the Aadhaar petitions, cases against the electoral bonds and other matters not being heard for years. The court may actually find merit in holding this commenter in contempt for criticizing it, as if the judiciary is somehow sacred and beyond any criticism (anyone interested can search online for recent news on what the court is doing).
The effect of “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is seen in many corners!
I'm sure they are, but are they more useful than what was before? Facebook & Co have some random element, it's not a one-way-communication device like classic media (TV, radio, newspapers) are/were.
The government has much less control over Facebook. You can't just go in and take it over like you could with a radio station, you can either use it and accept that others can as well, or you can block it in your country, but then you can't use it either.
False dichotomy. Lets not skip over irc, xmpp, and all sorts of free, variously encrypted communication platforms that Facebook muscled out.
WhatsApp is a hybrid, I suppose, but even there I think the share/forward feature is what drives the political usefulness, which is also why they're limiting that for some media, so you can't spread messages as easily (if it has been forwarded five times, you can only forward it individually, not to multiple contacts/chats, from what I understand).
The other side of the coin is that people being able to record and stream police in real time has exposed corruption in the justice system that the mainstream media has been ignoring for decades. The MSM use to never question whether police were being honest.
Also, This is not just a problem with Facebook India, Even Twitter India's heads have very close ties to India's ruling party.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/19/twitter...
Timeline:
26Nov2019: India puts WhatsApp's impending payments service on ice due to data localisation fracas. Both the security breach by Pegasus malware and WhatsApp's reluctance to adhere to India's data localisation norms have caused it to sit on the sidelines of one of the hottest digital payments markets in the world. [1] [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/india-puts-whatsapps-impending...
24Apr2020: Facebook is spending $5.7 billion to capitalize on India's internet boom. [2] [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/tech/facebook-india-relia...
08June2020: WhatsApp gets a raw deal from India in payments. WhatsApp needs a nod from the National Payments Corporation of India to throw open the switch. [3]. [3]https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/enterprise-ser...
16June2020: WhatsApp launches payments service, 2 yrs after it began testing in India. [4] [4]https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/whats...
03Aug WhatsApp a step closer to pay play. [5] [5]https://www.livemint.com/industry/banking/whatsapp-a-step-cl...
04Aug2020: WhatsApp Pay has now met all data localisation rules, NPCI tells RBI [6] [6]https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/news...
05Aug2020: 'NPCI gave ICICI Bank go ahead for WhatsApp Pay in June', RBI informs SC [7] [7]https://www.medianama.com/2020/08/223-npci-approves-whatsapp...
1 billion people, 2 billion eyes. No privacy laws, can easily share and sell data, govt is in the hands of Reliance (in which FB, Google and others are all investing a lot), most Indians are just getting used to the vast internet and are easily tricked.
Why shouldn’t a party in India be Hindu nationalists and recognize the realities of Islam’s persistent threat to their way of life over hundreds of years? There’s no other space on the planet for Hindus other than India. Blind secularism is asking for a culture to disappear and be replaced by the homogeneous modern western culture, ultimately.
Indian media thrives on these things. Half the nation is jobless/students . Most accounts are paid bots.
The only good thing is that the situation are getting better, as the older gen goes away slowly.
I do want to believe you, but most of the time it seems I am clutching at straws. The Hindu right is doing a pretty good job of catching them young and indoctrinating. At the same time there is ton of money flowing in from Saudi Arabia to do the honours for the other side.
With most Indian family having access to smartphones, the amount of hatred and brainwashing that happens through this platform is unstoppable. Recently, Hindus were told not to buy from Muslim vendors, saying that Muslims are purposely spreading corona. Hindu sellers were provided with saffron flags for identification. Concentration camps are being built using the same people as workers, who would eventually end up in the camps. MSM openly spews anti-muslim venom during prime time. India is openly heading towards either a genocide or a civil war.
One can try their best to un-brainwash people, but one can't do much against a paid online army of twitter/whatsapp/facebook users.
I suspect, China asked something that might undermine Zuck's political ambition.
This is a losing strategy
Agree that Facebook should act decisively to say no to things which incites violence and suppress the voice of minority.
The least it can do is to remove people immediately in the company who appear in slightest to promote or ignore hate and violent information on platform resulting in loss of life. Here Facebook is duty bound to act internally within its company to make sure it’s staff are responsible for their actions. I don’t see any of this indeed the whole Facebook team in India who did it are promoted based on research in WSJ and this article. Getting cozy with richest man closer to right wing is just to secure profits and market at the expense of principles.
Also right wing politics in India enjoys a substantial support, especially the Hitler style (reflected in many govt decisions). Facebook is just reflection of what’s in the society at present. Majority of the people are happy that a temple built will make India no. 1 in the world, talks and real actions on COVID-19 has become boring and not important as it inches towards no. 1 in the world for COVID-19 infections.
Facebook is a company that makes a profit off of engagement, even if that engagement is driven by hate. Facebook alone chooses what they promote on their platform. It is not some kind of mirror that just reflects what goes on in society, it is a company that distorts the truth, outrages and pushes paid propaganda on its users in order to turn a profit.
In India they choose the side of the govt, political party and an ideology, it’s again a reflection of the kind of staff managing Facebook in India and although they are duty bound to punish such staff they rewarded them and still defending them to secure the market and profits.
Do you even understand what Hiter style means?
She gave a half hearted apology. Facebook should have immediately suspended her or sacked her:
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/facebook-ankhi-das-anti-...
She and her sister (who is a politically connected to the ruling BJP party) have publicly been hobnobbing with the BJP and have actively been involved in propaganda. https://twitter.com/SaketGokhale/status/1294653379046596608
During the recent riots in Delhi where many died, the incitement of violence was by a member of the ruling party but has taken no action against Kapil Mishra's account which is still active:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=283365149510764
His account is still active and he still continues to try and make the Hindus fight the Muslims:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/09/whats...
besides that, the ruling party actively uses whatsapp for political reasons, with it's infamous "It Cell" known for manufacturing fake news. https://theprint.in/politics/9500-it-cell-heads-72000-whatsa...
So much so, that the current Home Minsiter of India, Amit Shah was seen in public bragging about the power of the IT Cell to "We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour" https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/amit-shah-real-fake-c...
But what would you actually have anyone do about WhatsApp? It's an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, and the whole purpose of end-to-end encryption (which, last I checked, HN was generally in favour of) is that there is no way to surveil or moderate the content of someone's communications.
edit: and how Whatsapp in general has fractured the information-media ecosystem, sending shock-waves across the democracy.
AFAIK group chats aren't e2e, and that's where most of the misinformation is shared.
That's a testament to his influence, that you can't even imagine a different world.
> Has it all been bad?
Their stance about climate change alone is bad enough to wipe out anything positive they might have done. But yeah, nearly all of it has been bad.
> Sounds like a player that made it.
That's what people said about Stalin and Mao too.
The Indian politics and judiciary have been compromised by right wing Hindu nationalists and it is impossible to expect anything from them. However, I expected better from Facebook. In a western country Facebook wouldn't think twice about firing any employee who shared such a post.
Point being, even though it's terrible ... it's really, really different.
“The Southern Strategy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Dog Whistle Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_(politics)
No, it's not. If anything, it's opting out of interfering in domestic affairs.
Facebook is not an official channel. The elected official has many other platforms, including the country's media, that will publish their message. They can create a blog if they want.
If Facebook is the only viable channel for reaching a large part of the electorate, the core issue is having only that one channel. You solve it by forcing competition, not by stifling Facebook's right to decide what they want to allow on their platform.
I deeply loathe Facebook and think they're undermining democracy in every country, but there should never be a way for a government to force a publisher to distribute an ideology that the publisher disagrees with.
Is indian govt really proposing this though? who is stifling their right?
I don't know about India, but in the US, there's been a major debate about whether govt can force platforms to retain posts and several attempted lawsuits over it.
I don't think so. comment wasn't merely presenting its take on things not proposing govt should force fb to do something.