Facebook India grilled over hate speech, alleged bias

NEW DELHI (AP) — Facebook India executives were grilled Wednesday by members of a parliamentary committee on information technology over the company's alleged political bias and role in spreading hate speech in India.

The closed-door hearing followed accusations in newspaper reports that Facebook was allowing anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform and that its top policy official in India had shown favoritism toward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. The social media giant has denied the allegations.

The outcome of the hearing was unclear.

India is Facebook’s largest market with nearly 328 million users. Facebook also owns WhatsApp, which has more than 400 million users in India.

As usage has spread across India, Facebook and WhatsApp have become fierce battlegrounds for India’s political parties. Leaders of Modi’s Hindu nationalist party have come under scrutiny for running online campaigns laced with false claims and attacks on the minority Muslim population.

Modi's party and its leaders have repeatedly denied the allegations and instead accuse Facebook of censoring pro-India content.

On Tuesday, technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and said the platform was censoring content posted by right-wing users.

In August, the main opposition Congress party wrote two letters to Zuckerberg asking him to specify steps being taken by his company to investigate allegations against its operations in India after a Wall Street Journal report said Facebook India’s head of public policy, Anhki Das, “opposed applying hate-speech rules” on members of Modi's party even after the issue was flagged internally.

In the second letter, the party said it was considering “legislative and judicial action” to make...