Submit data on complaints, Facebook told

The committee on peace and harmony of the Delhi assembly, inquiring into the northeast Delhi riots that took place in February 2020, on Thursday sought a series of clarifications and information from Facebook India on steps taken by the social media giant in curbing and taking down inflammatory content and fake news in the country.

- Sweta Goswami

NEW DELHI:

The committee sought to know the company's organisational capacity to handle and gate-keep the high volume of content from India, which accounts for almost 40% of Facebook's total users globally.

Facebook India's (Meta platforms) public policy director Shivnath Thukral and its associate general counsel Saanjh Purohit deposed before the committee chaired by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Raghav Chadha on Thursday. Representatives of Facebook India were first summoned to appear before the panel on November 2, but the hearing was postponed to November 18 on a request from the company.

The proceedings of the committee, which went beyond the scheduled limit of two hours, were significant because it was the first time that people could see lawmakers question Facebook India officials and hear their answers on issues ranging from hate speech to their system of fact-checking. The social media giant informed the panel that it has one billion users across the world, of which at least 400 million are from India.

Chadha and committee member BS Joon, also an AAP MLA, asked Facebook India to furnish data on user complaints and the subsequent action taken by the company in each case for a period of one month before and 60 days after the February 2020 riots in Delhi, in which 53 people were killed. Thukral said offensive material is removed from the platform by employing human reviewers and artificial intelligence. However, he acknowledged that these tools are not always perfect and there is still scope for improvement.