Delhi Assembly committee on riots: Facebook is stonewalling questions

Facebook’s head of public policy in India on Thursday repeatedly gave evasive answers to a Delhi Assembly panel’s questions on the platform’s alleged role in spreading malicious content that led to last year’s communal riots in the city.

When Committee for Peace and Harmony chairman Raghav Chadha asked about religious diversity among Facebook staff in India, Shivnath Thukral replied: “Indian laws don’t allow us to kind of differentiate people based on religious affiliation when we hire.”

Asked who the grievance officer for India was during the February 2020 riots, Thukral, the public policy director representing Meta Platforms which owns Facebook, again gave vague answers.

When committee member Bhupinder Singh Joon asked if the firm’s recruitment was classified, Thukral replied: “I am happy to share any information as per applicable law and legal orders.”

Thukral repeatedly evaded questions on Facebook’s definition of hate speech in India, saying it was part of the company’s global standards.

“Platforms like ours have to work on complex issues which have to balance both free speech and privacy safety at the same time…. We evolved hate speech definition to include caste slurs as well,” he said.

Later during the deposition — open to the public and webcast — Chadha asked if the (hypothetical) sentence “African Americans are termites who have a conspiracy to take over the country and need to be exterminated” would be considered hate speech by Facebook in the US. Thukral replied that content policy was not his domain.

Joon, Aam Aadmi Party MLA and Delhi’s former prosecution director, asked: “This was an extraordinary situation in February 2020. Did you take any action at that time?”

“This is an issue pertaining to law and order of the city, and I would like to exercise my right as per the SC judgment not to comment,” Thukral said.

While dismissing Facebook’s plea to avoid the committee’s summons, the Supreme Court had in July said the firm’s representatives “would be well within their right to refuse to answer” queries on law and order and the police.

Chadha said: “By stonewalling my questions, reserving your right to reply, you are frustrating the objective of this committee.”

He said the panel would examine Thukral’s replies and decide if and when Facebook officials needed to be summoned again.

Around 53 people had lost their lives in the Delhi riots against the backdrop of the protests against the Centre’s new citizenship regime. The Telegraph