We are open, transparent and non-partisan; denounces hate in any form: Facebook India

Facebook has always been an open, transparent and non-partisan platform which enables people to express themselves freely, said Ajit Mohan, Vice President, and Managing Director, Facebook India.

The statement from the social media giant came on Friday after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology summoned representatives of the company on September 2 to hear their views on prevention of misuse of social media platforms, according to the Lok Sabha secretariat on Thursday.

Mohan said that the platform "denounces hate in any form" and their community standards have clear and detailed policies against hate speech, prohibiting attack on people on the basis of religion, ethnicity, caste, and national origin. Moreover, it added that these "ever-evolving" policies have been developed with help from experts both inside and outside the company, to enable understanding of different perspectives on safety and expression.

It also said that "like a truly diverse orgzation, our employees represent a varied political spectrum who have either served in many administrations or have political experience and take immense pride in being active contributors to public service" and asserted that despite their political affiliations the employees perform their duties and implement their policies in a "fair and non-partisan" way.

Mohan said that the platform has removed and will continue to remove content posted by social figures in India when it violates the Community Standards.

"We've made progress on tackling hate speech on our platform, but we need to do more. Last week, we shared our latest enforcement numbers, reporting that we removed 22.5 million pieces of hate speech content in the second quarter of 2020 (up from just 1.6 million pieces of hate speech removed in the last quarter of 2017)," he said.

He added that the company aims to be an ally for India where the platforms preserve the "pluralistic character of a democracy" by offering the freedom for people to express, and for entrepreneurs to build new things while "also protecting society from broader harm."

Earlier, the Congress party had raised the issue of bias between Facebook and WhatsApp executives towards the BJP.

On the basis of a report published in an American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, Rahul Gandhi had alleged that Facebook and WhatsApp are controlled by BJP and RSS in India. Describing the matter as shocking, the Congress has demanded the formation of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to investigate it.

( With inputs from ANI )