WSJ story about Facebook India being ‘partial’ to the BJP is the revenge of the old media
4 years, 4 months ago

WSJ story about Facebook India being ‘partial’ to the BJP is the revenge of the old media

Op India  

Last evening, on Independence Day, I saw a couple of self-declared liberal journalists tweeting about how they were deleting their Facebook profiles. Not because I keep track of all top executives of big corporate houses – which otherwise being an ‘MBA types’ perhaps I should have been doing – but because I had sent several emails to her complaining about Facebook’s biased policies impacting reach and earning potential of OpIndia. I had sent a string of emails to Shivnath Thukral, another Facebook guy in the policy team, and Ankhi Das in the later part of 2019 listing whole lot of problems that we as a publisher faced due to Facebook’s unfair treatment. The traditional media first tried to ignore these developments, then they laughed at the “trolls”, and now they are fighting it. In the name of fighting “hate speech” and creating “safe spaces”, the traditional media, rather the ideology that ruled on the traditional media, is trying to put pressure and arm-twist the big tech companies to give them that power of censorship and gate-keeping over their platforms.

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History of this topic

India’s J-Schools Must Evolve to Survive Journalism’s Existential Crisis
1 week, 4 days ago

India’s J-Schools Must Evolve to Survive Journalism’s Existential Crisis

The Hindu  

Published : Dec 28, 2024 19:02 IST - 13 MINS READ In June this year, the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media in Bengaluru shut down after 24 years of existence. “Most people, especially in the current generation, no longer rely on TV, let alone the newspaper for news: They check social media instead.” Social media has indeed become …

The Great Indian Media Surrender: From Watchdog to Lapdog
2 weeks, 1 day ago

The Great Indian Media Surrender: From Watchdog to Lapdog

The Hindu  

Published : Dec 25, 2024 12:00 IST - 10 MINS READ There was a time, not long ago, when the Indian press exposed a commission scandal allegedly implicating a Prime Minister. Silent media Yet, nearly four decades later, the story of Gautam Adani’s companies being indicted by a US court for paying bribes to procure green energy contracts creates barely …

Western media – colonial mindset of thwarting India’s rise
9 months, 2 weeks ago

Western media – colonial mindset of thwarting India’s rise

Deccan Chronicle  

The Western media’s approach towards India shows how the English press continues to disseminate the West’s long-held prejudices against India. Drawing heavily from history, the book ‘Western media narratives on India: From Gandhi to Modi’ authored by Umesh Upadhyay critically unravels the origins and causes of this bias. The Western media crafted a narrative, projecting India’s response to the disaster …

Undeclared Emergency: The Hindu Editorial on the arrests in the Newsclick case
1 year, 3 months ago

Undeclared Emergency: The Hindu Editorial on the arrests in the Newsclick case

The Hindu  

Even for a government that has shown itself to be intolerant of critical journalism, the actions by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime on the news website NewsClick smack of extreme vendetta and brazen harassment. The government has, thus far, disclosed no specific allegation on what exactly merited the arrest of the site’s Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha and another person under the …

Media Boycott by INDIA Bloc Exposes Unsettled Priorities and Insecurity - News18
1 year, 3 months ago

Media Boycott by INDIA Bloc Exposes Unsettled Priorities and Insecurity - News18

News 18  

In a surprising move, the Opposition alliance, aptly named INDIA, has declared one of its initial decisions: a boycott of approximately 14 prominent TV anchors. There are tactful ways to address concerns, and it’s essential to acknowledge that various political parties, both past and present, have, at times, chosen to boycott media organisations, anchors, or newspapers. The Opposition alliance’s unequivocal …

CPJ urges US to press India’s Modi on media freedom during visit
1 year, 6 months ago

CPJ urges US to press India’s Modi on media freedom during visit

Al Jazeera  

The Committee to Protect Journalists says it expects the US to make India’s media crackdown ‘a core element of discussions’. A prominent press watchdog says the United States government should urge Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to end what it called a crackdown on media as it demanded the release of six journalists “arbitrarily detained in retaliation for their work”. …

From romanticising to humanising: Here’s how the mainstream Indian media has tried to generate sympathy for jihadis
1 year, 6 months ago

From romanticising to humanising: Here’s how the mainstream Indian media has tried to generate sympathy for jihadis

Op India  

Remember those Bollywood movies wherein a Hindu is corrupt, a Pandit is a rapist, an Indian soldier turns terrorist, a Baniya is an exploitative cheat, but Abdul is a peace-loving person driven by responsibilities? With such articles, the media hopes that Umar’s girlfriend’s cause would become the cause of the average citizen, with the facts being suppressed and summarily ignored …

World Press Freedom Day | How free speech in India is compromised by government control over platforms: Book excerpt from ‘Caged Tiger: How Too Much Government is Holding Indians Back’ by Subhashish B
1 year, 8 months ago

World Press Freedom Day | How free speech in India is compromised by government control over platforms: Book excerpt from ‘Caged Tiger: How Too Much Government is Holding Indians Back’ by Subhashish B

The Hindu  

Published : May 03, 2023 07:00 IST - 6 MINS READ In December 2004, the Delhi Police arrested Avnish Bajaj, the CEO of Baazee.com, because someone in Kharagpur, West Bengal, tried to sell through the website video copies of two Delhi-based students having sex. Social media companies, a term left vague and expansive, need to take down content within 36 …

Why the woes of Indian journalism affect all Indians
2 years, 1 month ago

Why the woes of Indian journalism affect all Indians

The Hindu  

The first week of November includes a day selected by the United Nations as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. Though the Indian Constitution is liberal, its interpretation through legislation has been anything but; harsh omnibus laws infringe and limit liberties, violate human rights and lead to degeneracy among administration and law enforcement agents. Now, from …

Facebook failed to curb misinformation, hate speech in India, leaked documents show
3 years, 2 months ago

Facebook failed to curb misinformation, hate speech in India, leaked documents show

ABC  

Facebook has been selective in curbing hate speech, misinformation and inflammatory posts in India, particularly anti-Muslim content, according to leaked documents obtained by US media. Key points: The leaked files show Facebook has been aware for years of hate speech on social media that was stoking violence in India In some cases, Facebook's own algorithm appeared to have "intensified" hate …

Social media giants accused of ‘silencing’ Kashmir voices
3 years, 3 months ago

Social media giants accused of ‘silencing’ Kashmir voices

Al Jazeera  

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are taking down accounts of Kashmiris, a report by a Kashmiri diaspora group says. A report by a Kashmiri diaspora group has accused social media giants Twitter, Facebook and Instagram of silencing Kashmiri voices in the digital spaces through the frequent suspension of the accounts of artists, academics, and journalists based in and outside the disputed …

Facebook suspends Pakistan-linked fake news outlets targeting India
3 years, 7 months ago

Facebook suspends Pakistan-linked fake news outlets targeting India

India Today  

In a recent Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour report of Facebook, the platform has taken down 40 Facebook accounts, 25 Pages, six Groups, and 28 Instagram accounts based in Pakistan. “Key narratives advanced by the network included: praise for Pakistan and its armed forces; efforts to denigrate India and highlight attacks by Hindu nationalists targeting religious minorities; support for Pakistani Prime Minister …

Facebook found no element in Bajrang Dal's content to necessitate ban, says company’s India head Ajit Mohan
4 years ago

Facebook found no element in Bajrang Dal's content to necessitate ban, says company’s India head Ajit Mohan

Firstpost  

Mohan was summoned by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, led by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor to discuss the data safety of users New Delhi: Facebook’s India head Ajit Mohan deposed before a parliamentary panel on Wednesday and suggested that the social media company’s fact-checking team has so far found no such element that necessitates a ban on the …

Ankhi Das quits Facebook
4 years, 2 months ago

Ankhi Das quits Facebook

The Hindu  

Facebook’s India policy head Ankhi Das, who was at the centre of the controversy over the social media network’s alleged bias in favour of the ruling Modi-led government, and violation of its own hate speech policy in India, has quit the company. The controversy over Facebook’s and Ms. Das’s role in not adequately controlling hate speech on the platform, and …

Why Hate Facebook? It Might Just Be Last Best Free Speech Measure
4 years, 2 months ago

Why Hate Facebook? It Might Just Be Last Best Free Speech Measure

The Quint  

The recent investigative reports by TIME and the Wall Street Journal on Facebook’s content handling and lobbying activities have triggered an intense political debate in India. On the one hand, Facebook’s moderation of hateful content in India seems to have been influenced by business and political imperatives; on the other, it appears as if the relationship between its public policy …

Indigenisation & Not Injured Stance is the Answer to Snooping by China, Writes Lt Gen (Retd) DS Hooda
4 years, 3 months ago

Indigenisation & Not Injured Stance is the Answer to Snooping by China, Writes Lt Gen (Retd) DS Hooda

News 18  

The revelation that a small Chinese company called Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Technology collected online and social media data of 10,000 influential Indians, including political leaders, was greeted with a great deal of shock. We must also be conscious that while Zhenhua may only be collecting data from open sources, this would only be one part of the data that would …

Freedom and bias: How Facebook is facing a reckoning
4 years, 3 months ago

Freedom and bias: How Facebook is facing a reckoning

Deccan Chronicle  

What a year it is turning out to be for Facebook! The ongoing deposition before India’s parliamentary standing committee on information technology was always going to be a perfunctory but important attempt to raise questions of Facebook’s influence over societies and their behaviour. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad shot off a strategically timed letter -- coinciding with the parliamentary committee …

Under fire, Facebook says it is non-partisan and denounces hate speech in any form
4 years, 4 months ago

Under fire, Facebook says it is non-partisan and denounces hate speech in any form

Deccan Chronicle  

New Delhi: Facing harsh criticism for its alleged pro-BJP bias from the Congress, social media giant Facebook on Thursday informed the party that it was “non-partisan” and denounced “hate speech” in any form. In line with our hate speech policy, we have removed and will continue to remove hateful content by public figures in India on our platforms.” He was …

Facebook bans politician from India’s BJP for hate speech
4 years, 4 months ago

Facebook bans politician from India’s BJP for hate speech

Al Jazeera  

Raja Singh banned from Facebook and Instagram for anti-Muslim posts, after the social media giant accused of bias. Facebook has banned a member of India’s governing Hindu nationalist party for violating its policies covering violence and hate speech, after the social media giant was accused of political bias. The world’s largest social media company is under fire after The Wall …

Facebook India grilled over hate speech, allegations of bias
4 years, 4 months ago

Facebook India grilled over hate speech, allegations of bias

Associated Press  

NEW DELHI — Facebook India executives were grilled Wednesday by members of a parliamentary committee on information technology over allegations of political bias and a role in spreading hate speech in India. The closed-door hearing followed accusations in newspaper reports that Facebook was allowing anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform and that its top policy official in India had shown …

Posts by Facebook’s Ankhi Das show political bias, says new report
4 years, 4 months ago

Posts by Facebook’s Ankhi Das show political bias, says new report

The Hindu  

Even as Facebook is facing criticism over allegations of bias towards the Modi-led government, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, the company’s head of policy in India Ankhi Das has over the past years shown support for the BJP via posts in a Facebook group for employees, while disparaging the Opposition. Stating that some staff saw …

Social media: The new theatre of India’s culture wars
4 years, 4 months ago

Social media: The new theatre of India’s culture wars

Hindustan Times  

The phenomenal rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others is proving to be a double-edged sword in the functioning of democracies. The former’s flagging of a presidential tweet as fake news, and the latter’s executive order altering the liability of SM platforms who edit content, is worth understanding better. Especially since the early 20th century, US …

Ankhi Das openly supported BJP on Facebook's internal group, says WSJ report; Congress seeks criminal probe against social media giant
4 years, 4 months ago

Ankhi Das openly supported BJP on Facebook's internal group, says WSJ report; Congress seeks criminal probe against social media giant

Firstpost  

According to the report, messages written by Das showed her praising Narendra Modi as the ‘strongman’ who ended the Congress’ hold in India Facebook’s policy director for India and South and Central Asia, Ankhi Das, posted messages of her support for BJP for several years on an internal group of the company’s employees, detailing efforts to help the party win …

The campaign against Ankhi Das is to make Facebook bend to the Left
4 years, 4 months ago

The campaign against Ankhi Das is to make Facebook bend to the Left

Op India  

The liberal brigade is up in arms against Ankhi Das of Facebook again for her alleged bias in favour of the ruling dispensation. New allegations, again raised by the Wall Street Journal, claim that between 2012 and 2014, Ankhi Das engaged in behaviour that according to Facebook staffers betrayed the platform’s commitment to neutrality on politics. He said, “These posts …

We’re Transparent & Non-Partisan, Claims Facebook India VP in Blog
4 years, 4 months ago

We’re Transparent & Non-Partisan, Claims Facebook India VP in Blog

The Quint  

The VP's blog comes days after an investigative report in The Wall Street Journal pointed out how political affiliations have had bearing on the implementation of policies by Facebook in India. The report revealed how, despite the insistence of Facebook employees to permanently ban the profile of BJP MP T Raja Singh for promoting hate speech, the company's top public …

Regulation of political content | Facebook employees internally question policy
4 years, 4 months ago

Regulation of political content | Facebook employees internally question policy

The Hindu  

Facebook and its top lobbying executive in India, Ankhi Das, are facing questions internally from employees over how political content is regulated in its biggest market, according to sources with direct knowledge and internal posts seen by Reuters. In the United States and around the world, Facebook employees are raising questions about whether adequate procedures and content regulation practices were …

Cong Writes to Mark Zuckerberg over 'Interference', Seeks Probe into Conduct of Facebook India's Team
4 years, 4 months ago

Cong Writes to Mark Zuckerberg over 'Interference', Seeks Probe into Conduct of Facebook India's Team

News 18  

The Congress on Tuesday wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing Facebook India of "interfering" with the country's electoral democracy, and demanded a time-bound high level inquiry into the conduct of Facebook India leadership team and their operations. The article stated that Das had told staff members that punishing BJP politicians for these violations would be detrimental to the "company’s …

FIR registered in Chhattisgarh against Ankhi Das, two Facebook users
4 years, 4 months ago

FIR registered in Chhattisgarh against Ankhi Das, two Facebook users

The Hindu  

The Raipur Police have registered a case against Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director of Facebook for India, South and Central Asia, and two other users of the social media platform, for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and intending to incite communal violence. In his complaint, Mr. Tiwari said that after he shared a Facebook post referring to a recent The Wall …

EXPLAINED | From WSJ Revelations To Blame Games Between BJP-Congress; All About Facebook Hate Speech Controversy
4 years, 4 months ago

EXPLAINED | From WSJ Revelations To Blame Games Between BJP-Congress; All About Facebook Hate Speech Controversy

ABP News  

BJP & RSS control Facebook & Whatsapp in India. — Ravi Shankar Prasad August 16, 2020 A report in a US based publication alleging that social media giant - Facebook deliberately ignored 'hate -speech' content from right-wing leaders and workers to manipulate election game, has stirred a heated controversy in India.The Wall Street Journal through its report has attempted to …

Facebook row is unelectable Left's desperate attempt to gag social media
4 years, 4 months ago

Facebook row is unelectable Left's desperate attempt to gag social media

Firstpost  

The Centre needs to intervene at the policy level not to censor, but to make these platforms adopt transparency. Around that time, Facebook approached Boom Live and Alt News, two ‘fact-checking’ platforms widely perceived as anti-Rightwing and as mainly targeting nationalistic politics led by Narendra Modi. So, when the Left and so-called liberal ecosystem starts screaming about Facebook’s supposed pro-Modi …

'Threats Against My Body, Life': Facebook Policy Head Files Plaint as WSJ Report Leads to 'Violent' Posts
4 years, 4 months ago

'Threats Against My Body, Life': Facebook Policy Head Files Plaint as WSJ Report Leads to 'Violent' Posts

News 18  

Public policy director of Facebook India, South and Central Asia, Ankhi Das, has filed a complaint with the Delhi Police against a number of people who allegedly issued "violent threats" to her online. An August 14 article published in The Wall Street Journal claims that Das was opposed to applying Facebook's hate speech rules to four individuals and groups with …

Did BJP collude with Facebook? Hate speech row explained in 10 points
4 years, 4 months ago

Did BJP collude with Facebook? Hate speech row explained in 10 points

India Today  

A massive can of worms has been opened in India after a report in the Wall Street Journal claimed that Facebook ignored applying its hate speech rules to BJP leaders in India. The report published in Wall Street Journal claimed that Ankhi Das, Facebook’s public policy director for India, South and Central Asia, told employees that initiating punitive action against …

Parliamentary panel to consider summoning Facebook over WSJ report on hate speech: Shashi Tharoor
4 years, 4 months ago

Parliamentary panel to consider summoning Facebook over WSJ report on hate speech: Shashi Tharoor

Firstpost  

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP and RSS control Facebook and Whatsapp in the country, and that they spread hatred through these platforms to influence the electorate Hours after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi shared a Wall Street Journal report that alleged that Facebook ignored hate speech rules on BJP-linked posts, party leader Shashi Tharoor said that …

Facebook India favouring BJP, RSS? IT Minister slams Rahul Gandhi's allegations
4 years, 4 months ago

Facebook India favouring BJP, RSS? IT Minister slams Rahul Gandhi's allegations

India Today  

Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday responded to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's allegations that social media platform Facebook was biased in its functioning in India. If what @WSJ has written is incorrect, take them to the court https://t.co/ixljXqsKvR — Pawan Khera August 16, 2020 Congress demands JPC probe after FB India expose: Congress …

Facebook ignored hate speech by India’s BJP politicians: Report
4 years, 4 months ago

Facebook ignored hate speech by India’s BJP politicians: Report

Al Jazeera  

Facebook ignored its hate speech policy and allowed anti-Muslim posts on its platform to avoid ruining the social media company’s relationship with India’s governing party, says a report in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ report published on Friday said a top Facebook executive in India refused to apply the company’s hate speech rules to Bharatiya Janata Party politicians and …

The Art of Ruling: The Modi-Shah Doctrine of Governance and how the duo brought the Media and Mobs to kneel in 2019
5 years ago

The Art of Ruling: The Modi-Shah Doctrine of Governance and how the duo brought the Media and Mobs to kneel in 2019

Op India  

The Year 2019 has been historic by any measure. In this article, we shall make an effort to deduce how Narendra Modi brought the liberal establishment to kneel, of which the mainstream media is the most prominent part, and dealt with the threat of Muslim mob violence. The Blitzkrieg If the Modi government’s strategy during its first term was ignoring …

Mahatma Gandhi 150th birth anniversary: What would Gandhi say about the Indian media?
5 years, 3 months ago

Mahatma Gandhi 150th birth anniversary: What would Gandhi say about the Indian media?

The Hindu  

As we celebrate Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, a thought experiment that could yield provocative insights would be to explore what Gandhi would say about different aspects of modern India. Since Gandhi was a journalist before he became a political revolutionary, I will conjecture how he would have responded to the state of the Indian media today. He wrote: “I …

Radical Left Congress: Where treason and ‘bharat tere tukde honge’ is acceptable, but free speech on Social Media is not
5 years, 9 months ago

Radical Left Congress: Where treason and ‘bharat tere tukde honge’ is acceptable, but free speech on Social Media is not

Op India  

The Congress party in its manifesto, released earlier today, has promised a crackdown on social media. Under such circumstances, Rahul Gandhi’s promise to regulate social media appears to be motivated by political concerns hiding under the cloak of ‘hate speech’ and ‘fake news’. Further evidence of the fact that the promise to regulate social media is a direct threat to …

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