Facebook bans BJP politician for promoting hate speech
Under severe criticism over its alleged bias and handling of hate speech, Facebook today said it has banned a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party politician from its platform and Instagram for "violating" its policy on content promoting violence and hate.
"We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our policy prohibiting those that promote or engage in violence and hate from having a presence on our platform," a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led to Facebook's decision to remove his account, according to the statement.
FB had earlier removed the content Singh had posted that violated its policies, including its hate speech policies.
Facebook, which has more than 300 million users in India, has been in the eye of a storm after a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report alleged that Facebook's content policies favoured the ruling party in India.
The report alleged that Facebook had ignored posts containing hate speech by Raja Singh. Since then, ruling BJP and Congress have been attacking each other over the social media giant's alleged bias, triggering a war of words for the last few days.
In the wake of the WSJ report, a parliamentary standing committee had summoned Facebook representatives to discuss the issue of alleged misuse of the social media platform on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, India's Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had also written to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg accusing the social media platform's employees of supporting people with a political predisposition that lost successive elections and "abusing" the prime minister and senior cabinet ministers.
To date, FB has banned a range of groups and individuals across the globe for violating this policy.
Raja Singh is a BJP member of the legislature in southern Indian state of Telangana ruled by regional outfit Telangana Rashtra Samiti headed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao.
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