Indian politicians trade barbs over report Facebook policies favoured Modi

NEW DELHI: : (HRNW) Indian politicians are trading barbs over a media report that Facebook’s content policies favoured Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, putting the social network at the centre of a political storm in its biggest market by users.

Lawmakers of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have accused the social media giant of censoring nationalist voices, after the opposition Congress seized on a Wall Street Journal report to seek a parliamentary investigation of Facebook employees’ alleged ties with the ruling party.

Facebook was already a “Left-Congress-leaning platform,” said BJP lawmaker and former minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.

“This storm in a teacup is merely an exercise to browbeat Facebook for ‘allowing’ certain opinions to even exist,” Rathore wrote in a column in the Indian Express newspaper.

“There are examples of current and former Facebook executives with links to the former government and opposition parties, and some of them have been openly critical of the prime minister as well. To accuse them of being pro-BJP is laughable.”