New Delhi: The Committee on Peace and Harmony of the Delhi Assembly, which probed the Northeast Delhi riots in February 2020, on Thursday sought several clarifications and information from Facebook India on the steps taken by the social media giant. Content and fake news in the country.
The committee sought to know the organizational capacity of the company to handle and gate-keeping the high volume of content from India, which accounts for nearly 40% of Facebook’s total users globally.
Facebook India (meta platform) public policy director Shivnath Thukral and his associate general counsel Sanjh Purohit on Thursday testified before a committee headed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Raghav Chadha. Facebook India representatives were earlier called to appear before the panel on November 2, but the hearing was postponed to November 18 on the company’s request.
The committee’s proceedings, which went beyond the stipulated two-hour limit, were significant as it was the first time that people could see MPs questioning Facebook India officials and issues ranging from hate speech to their fact-checking system. But I could hear their answers. The social media giant informed the panel that it has one billion users worldwide, of whom at least 400 million are from India.
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Chadha and committee member BS Jun, who is also an AAP MLA, asked Facebook India to submit data on user complaints and action taken by the company in each case a month before and 60 days after the February 2020 riots in Delhi. asked for In which 53 people died. Thukral said that by employing human reviewers and artificial intelligence, objectionable content is removed from the platform. However, he acknowledged that these tools are not always perfect and there is still room for improvement.
The panel asked Thukral and Purohit whether the company had a definition for “hate speech”, especially in the Indian context. To this Thukral replied: “The definition of hate speech is very high in the standards of the community. But it is always evolving. For example, in India, based on input from civil society, we included insults to caste in an evolving definition of hate speech. Our Community Standards are a global document. We believe that hate speech definitions apply equally across the world and we will take them into account whenever there are local views.
From time to time, panel members and Meta Inc officials referred to each other’s paragraphs from the Supreme Court’s July 8 order on the powers of the Delhi Assembly to summon both members and non-members, including representatives of Facebook. was retained. However, the order states that the panel cannot engage in matters relating to police, law and order, or land in its proceedings as these subjects are outside the purview of the committee as well as the elected government.
Asked what action was taken to curb inflammatory material during the riots last year, the representative said, “It is a matter of law and order and it is part of the ongoing investigation. Also, as per the decision of the Supreme Court, I exercise my right not to comment on this.