End social media’s influence on electoral politics: Sonia Gandhi

New Delhi: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday urged the government to end the “systematic influence and interference of Facebook and other social media giants” on electoral politics being used to “hack democracy”.

Speaking in Lok Sabha, she called it an issue of paramount importance while referring to the rising danger of social media’s abuse. She added companies such as Facebook and Twitter were used increasingly to shape political narratives by leaders, parties, and their proxies.

The comments came following an Al Jazeera article, which said Facebook undercut the Opposition’s influence on the platform ahead of the 2019 national elections and gave a distinct advantage to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The article is based on an analysis of 536,070 political advertisements on Facebook and Instagram from February 2019 to November 2020. It assessed the influence of Facebook’s political advertising policies on elections in the country.

HT has reached out to Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter for comments but did not receive a response immediately.

Without directly referring to the article, Gandhi said bias displayed by platforms such as Facebook has repeatedly come to the notice of the public. “…global social media companies are not providing a level playing field to all parties.” She added the blatant manner in which social harmony was being disturbed with the connivance of the ruling establishment is dangerous for democracy.

Gandhi said minds were being filled with hate through emotionally charged disinformation, and proxy. She added companies such as Facebook were aware of it and profiting from it. She referred to a growing nexus between big corporations, the ruling establishment, and global social media giants.

Congress lawmaker Rahul Gandhi also took a dig at the company. “Meta-worse for democracy,” he tweeted.

Facebook earlier came under scrutiny in 2020 when its India policy head, Ankhi Das, stepped down when allegations of her biased approach in censoring hate content surfaced. The controversy began following an August 14, 2020, report in the Wall Street Journal, which said Das intervened to stop Telangana BJP lawmaker T Raja Singh from being banned from the social media site over possible fallout for the company’s business interests.

In a second report, Wall Street Journal said Das previously claimed to have “lit a fire to” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s social media campaign before he swept to power in 2014.

Last year, the company was accused of allowing algorithms to amplify hate speech. Whistle-blowers Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen have testified against the company’s policies. Haugen told British lawmakers the social media company stokes online hate and extremism, fails to protect children from harmful content and lacks any incentive to fix the problems.

The officials from the company have appeared before the parliamentary panel on information and technology.

Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw last year told parliament the government is willing to bring a stricter law to check the abuse of social media. “Every time the government suggests a stricter law, the Opposition says we are scuttling free speech.”