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.
