Page 82 - PR Communication Age January-June2020

Facebook India has a PR problem

A ccused of favouring ruling officials over their failure to take ac- previously a privacy and public policy

tion against allegedly harmful content.
adviser at Facebook.
party politicians to protect
business interests in its big-
notices to officials of the company to
gest market, social media The panel is working on sending out Facebook claims it uses a combination
platform Facebook is staring at no less initiate proceedings in the matter. It is of artificial intelligence and reports
than a full-blown public relations crisis also looking into whether there's been from people to identify posts, pictures
in India. "any role or complicity of Facebook or other content that violate its stan-
officials in Delhi riots" earlier this year. dards. The latest controversy has sur-
With Congress MP and chairman of the To be sure, it is not that Facebook's faced as Facebook and its messaging
parliamentary committee on informa- sizeable corporate communications platform WhatsApp have emerged as
tion technology Shashi Tharoor taking and public relations teams in India are a key tool for political communication
to Twitter to say the committee could not active. and propaganda.
summon Facebook officials, the Ameri-
can firm is facing immense political For the last several months, Facebook A Facebook spokesperson in India
heat in India. has been in an overdrive pushing inter- didn't respond to queries.
views with its India vice-president and
The controversy around the social managing director Ajit Mohan and While opposition parties have accused
media firm erupted after the US daily reaching out to newspapers for engag- it of favouring the government of
Wall Street Journal reported that ing with Das, who is at the heart of the Prime Minister NarendraModi, the rul-
Facebook had allowed ruling current controversy over the ing BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) has
BharatiyaJanata Party leaders get platform's alleged right-wing bias. questioned its decisions to censor con-
away with sharing hate content. The tent on certain occasions.
article said Facebook's head of public "Facebook has taken a severe brand
policy Ankhi Das had told staff that hit around the world over recent The controversy has also reached the
punishing such BJP leaders would dam- months-and over the past few years. Parliament's privileges committee and
age Facebook's business prospects in If more and more consumers around the issue is set to be raised by opposi-
India, where the platform has 280 mil- the world bear the brunt of the tion parties in the upcoming monsoon
lion users. company's frequent policy mishaps, session of Parliament scheduled to take
the once-positive aura of Facebook will place in a fortnight.
In the last couple of days, the Delhi only continue to sour," said Dipayan
legislative assembly's committee for Ghosh, co-director of the Digital Plat- Pressure is mounting, too, for scrutiny
peace and harmony has taken cogni- forms and Democracy Project, of the allegations with the Congress
zance of complaints against Facebook Harvard Kennedy School. Ghosh was and Communist Party of India (Marx-

"A man who has mastered his heart has mastered his tongue!" 3

82 PR COMMUNICATION AGE January - June 2020