In an unprecedented move, the I.N.D.I.A. alliance of opposition parties has written a letter to heads of Meta and Google, to raise their attention over promotion of social disharmony and increasing communal hatred in India. The official X handle of Congress party shared two letter dated October 11, wrote to CEO of Alphabet Inc., Sundar Pichai, and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg.
The letter addressed to the Meta CEO reads, “We are writing on behalf of the India National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), an alliance of 28 political parties in India that represent the combined Opposition coalition. We are the ruling alliance in 11 states and represent nearly half of all Indian voters. You may be aware of the recent exposes by the Washington Post newspaper about the role of WhatsApp and Facebook in aiding the communal hatred campaign of the ruling BJP.”
“It is very clear from this exhaustive investigation by the Washington Post that Meta is culpable of abetting social disharmony and inciting communal hatred in India. Further, we have data that shows algorithmic moderation and suppression of Opposition leaders’ content on your platform while also promoting ruling party content,” the letter further reads.
A similar letter has been written to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The letter reads: “You may be aware of the recent expose by the Washington Post newspaper titled “He live-streamed his attacks on Indian Muslims. YouTube gave him an award” about the role of YouTube in propagating communal hatred and dividing Indian society. Specifically, the article cites details of how this vile, communally divisive propaganda is carried out using YouTube by BJP members and supporters.”
INDIA parties have also written to @Google's Mr. @sundarpichai, condemning the role of YouTube in causing social unrest and spreading the communally divisive propaganda of the ruling BJP.
The investigation conducted by the @washingtonpost also highlights the suppression of… pic.twitter.com/sMrNbh0q35
— Congress (@INCIndia) October 12, 2023
It all started with a September 26, 2023, report of Washington Post titled, “He live-streamed his attacks on Indian Muslims. YouTube gave him an award” for The Washington Post by Gerry Shih and Pranshu Verma. Basically, the report alleged that social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube are promoting communal hate in India. The report further alleged that these platforms are promoting content by the ruling party BJP and its supporters, while suppressing the opposition leaders’ content at the very same time.
I.N.D.I.A. alliance already boycotted TV anchors
The I.N.D.I.A. bloc has already boycotted television shows moderated by certain news anchors. The authorised sub-committee on media has come up with a list of such news anchors whose shows they have decided to avoid taking part in as panelists.
The list includes Aditi Tyagi, Aman Chopra, Amish Devgan, Anand Narasimhan, Arnab Goswami, Ashok Srivastava, Chitra Tripathi, Gaurav Sawant, Navika Kumar, Prachi Parashar, Rubika Liaquat, Shiva Aroor, Sudhir Chaudhary and Sushant Sinha.
