The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology on Monday questioned Facebook officials over allegations that the algorithm used for its advertising platform unfairly promotes one political party in the country. The U.S.-headquartered social media giant was also questioned over claims that hate content is rewarded on the platform as well as the company’s lack of Indian language experts for quality check.
The committee met on Monday on the subject — 'Safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms, including special emphasis on women security in the digital space'.
In their defence, Facebook representatives present at the meeting have said the algorithm has been designed to decide which advertisements do better than the others and there is no intervention by the company in this process, a source said. Facebook also informed the panel that the algorithm does not differentiate between political and non-political ads.
‘Unfair advantage’
According to a recent report in Al Jazeera, The Reporters’ Collective (TRC) and ad.watch analysed data of all the 5,36,070 political advertisements placed on Facebook and Instagram from February 2019 through November 2020, and found that Facebook’s “advertising platform systematically undercut the political competition in the world’s largest electoral democracy, giving an unfair advantage to the BJP over its competitors”.
According to sources, the committee members also asked Facebook officials to explain the revelations made by whistle-blower Sophie Zhang and others who spoke about the privacy violation and misuse of personal data by the social media giant.
Ms. Zhang had sent a letter that was circulated to the committee members. The committee has sought Speaker Om Birla’s permission to allow for her physical deposition. The Speaker is yet to give his ruling on the issue.
The Facebook officials debunked all the claims made by Ms. Zhang and other whistle-blowers.
“The Facebook officials claimed that the whistle-blower did not have any direct knowledge or access on the processes on which she has commented,” one of the members said. The members have asked Facebook to send in written replies.
Language experts
The members also expressed concern that the algorithm of the Facebook seems to be aligned towards promoting and awarding hate content. The social media giant assured the members that their objections will be taken into account and a detailed reply will be filed. The members also expressed that since in India — which is the biggest user base for the company globally — it is used in multiple languages there should be enough language experts to deal with the content.
A good portion of the time was also spent in understanding the Meta Verse. The standing committee is expected to submit its report soon on this widely contested subject.
Facebook has been facing allegations of bias and inability to curb hate content on its platform in India for nearly two years. In 2020, it was reported that the company had failed to implement its own guidelines on hate speech in India in favour of some individuals, including those associated with the ruling BJP. It has also been alleged that despite being aware of hate content on its platform, Facebook has been unable to take action due to lack of regional language capabilities.
