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Sonia Gandhi tears into Modi govt & BJP for ‘colluding with FB, Twitter to hack democracy’

During Zero Hour in Lok Sabha, Congress interim chief asked govt to put an end to ‘systematic interference’ of FB & other social media giants in India’s electoral politics.

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New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi cited the recently released film The Kashmir Files to claim that an “entire ecosystem” has been working to suppress the truth, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Wednesday accused the government of colluding with social media giants Facebook and Twitter to spread “venom and disinformation” to “hack democracy”.

As the second phase of the budget session of Parliament entered its third day, the Rae Bareli MP, during a Zero Hour submission, tore into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, accusing it of “destroying democracy by proxy advertising on social media”.

“Thank you for allowing me to take up an issue of paramount importance the rising danger of social media being abused to hack our democracy. Global companies like Facebook and Twitter are used increasingly to shape political narratives by leaders, parties and their proxies,” Gandhi said.

The Congress’ interim president was referring to an Al Jazeera report that has claimed that Facebook carried advertisements promoting BJP or discrediting opposition parties during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls with an aim to increase the ruling party’s visibility on social media platforms, bypassing the law.

She also cited a Wall Street Journal report, published last year, which had claimed, on the basis of a former Facebook employee’s account, that social media giants are compromising on ethics and rules when it comes to the Indian market.

Gandhi asked the government to put an end to the “systematic interference of Facebook and other social media giants in the electoral politics of the world’s largest democracy”.\

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who is a member of the parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology, responded sharply to Gandhi, saying that it was the Congress that “throttled” freedom of expression — “whether in Kashmir or during the Emergency”.


Also Read: ‘Kapil Sibal kaha ka neta hai… no one can weaken Sonia Gandhi,’ loyalists tell dissenters


‘Social media firms aren’t providing a level playing field’

“It has repeatedly come to public notice that global social media companies aren’t providing a level playing field to all parties… Blatant manner in which social harmony is being disturbed by FB with the connivance of the ruling establishment is dangerous for our democracy,” Gandhi said in the House during Zero Hour Wednesday.

She further alleged that “young and old minds are being filled with hate through emotionally charged disinformation”, adding: “Proxy advertising companies like FB are aware of it and are profiting from it. Report shows a growing nexus between big corporations, ruling establishment and global social media giants like FB.”

However, BJP’s Dubey asked: “Who brought 66A in the RTI Act to curb freedom of expression? What was Nehru’s role during the 1962 war? Who has given Tibet? They want people to forget 1962, Kashmir atrocities. It is not yet decided whether Facebook is a publisher or intermediary, but there is a need of a white paper on how Congress crushed freedom of expression.”

Gandhi’s attack on the Centre came a day after PM Modi took a swipe at critics of The Kashmir Files, a film based on the violence that triggered the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley at the height of militancy over three decades ago. 

Modi was speaking at a meeting with BJP MPs, days after the party won four of the five states that went to elections.

The PM is also said to have voiced support for the movie against what he described as attempts to discredit it, adding that such films should be made so that people get to know the truth.

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)


Also Read: Congress leadership ‘living in cuckoo land’ says Sibal, warns ‘party won’t survive’ without change


 

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