New Delhi: Dismissing charges that Facebook favoured the BJP and its leaders, senior BJP leader and Union Minister for Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad Tuesday said every Indian regardless of his ideology or commitment has a right to convey his or her views on a public platform.
Reserving his comments on The Wall Street Journal report, Prasad said that is for Facebook to look into it, adding that close to 700 BJP supporter pages were removed from the social media site.
“I have responded to Rahul Gandhi’s tweet through a tweet. That is the factual position of the party on the matter,” Prasad said at a press conference here.
“As far as other issues are concerned, the BJP’s IT cell has informed that 700 pages of BJP supporters were removed from the social media site Facebook. This is also a reality.”
A news report published by WSJ on 14 August said Facebook India had turned a blind eye to hate speeches by a BJP leader and three other “Hindu nationalist individuals and groups” to avoid damaging the social media platform’s business prospects in its biggest market.
“I’d like to say only one thing, I’ll not take the name of any particular platform,” Prasad said. “If the platform in question is a public platform, then every Indian regardless of his or her ideology or commitment has got the right to convey his /her views on the platform.
“It is a hard fact in the country that we need to know that people whose political base has shrunk like anything seek to dominate public discourse of these platforms. That is not right,” he added.
Also read: Why should I apologise? Have right to opinion, says BJP MLA in WSJ-Facebook controversy
‘Sonia, Rahul also made hate speeches’
Speaking on the subject of hate speeches, the IT minister said: “If it is about hate speech I would like to give two examples. Sonia Gandhi had once said he aar paar ki ladai hai. (This is a do or die battle). Is this a hate speech or not? Rahul Gandhi, before the Delhi elections, had said PM ko log dando se marenge. (PM will be beaten with batons ). Is this a hate speech or not? This is a textbook case for instigation of violence.”
Prasad said nobody raised a stink over these speeches. “Rahul Gandhi thinks that those who don’t favour him or the Congress are under the influence of BJP and RSS. The people will respond to this,” he said.
Unrelenting in his attack against the BJP on the FB issue, Rahul Gandhi Tuesday tweeted: “We cannot allow any manipulation of our hard-earned democracy through bias, fake news & hate speech. As exposed by @WSJ, Facebook’s involvement in peddling fake and hate news needs to be questioned by all Indians”.
We cannot allow any manipulation of our hard-earned democracy through bias, fake news & hate speech.
As exposed by @WSJ, Facebook’s involvement in peddling fake and hate news needs to be questioned by all Indians. pic.twitter.com/AvBR6P0wAK
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 18, 2020
Responding to an earlier tweet by Rahul Gandhi, Prasad had said, “Losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP & RSS.”
Losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP & RSS.
You were caught red-handed in alliance with Cambridge Analytica & Facebook to weaponise data before the elections & now have the gall to question us? https://t.co/NloUF2WZVY
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) August 16, 2020
certainly not as she was asking her party member to work hard,not to kill or hurt any one
Mummy G can say anything and get away with it. After all she is Mother India G. This is a special family G. They are royal people.