Congress demands high level inquiry into Facebook India amid bias, fake news allegations

New Delhi [India], August 18 : The Congress party has repeatedly raised the issue of bias between Facebook and WhatsApp executives towards the BJP and now it has demanded a high-level inquiry into Facebook India, said Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday.
"Congress repeatedly raised the issue of bias with many executives of Facebook and WhatsApp. In one such meeting, I also participated and raised multiple issues to mostly deaf ears. To add, other political parties have also raised the same issue in India's Parliament," Venugopal said in a letter.
The letter further said it "is still not too late to course-correct and make amends." Venugopal demanded setting up of a high-level inquiry by Facebook headquarters into the Facebook India leadership team "and their operations and submit a report to the board of Facebook Inc". "The report should also be made public," he said further.
"Publish and make transparent all instances of hate speech posts since 2014 that were allowed on the platform. Until the completion of the internal investigation and submission of the report, please consider to lead Facebook India operations by a new team so as to not influence the investigation," the letter read.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi earlier tweeted on Tuesday that Facebook's alleged involvement in peddling fake news on the social media platform needs to be questioned.
"We cannot allow any manipulation of our hard-earned democracy through bias, fake news & hate speech. As exposed by @WSJ (Wall Street Journal), Facebook's involvement in peddling fake and hate news needs to be questioned by all Indians," he tweeted.