The parliamentary standing committee on information and technology questioned Facebook officials on Monday over allegations that the algorithm used for its advertising platform unfairly promotes a political party in the country. The American social media giant was also asked about claims that hateful content is rewarded on the platform as well as the company’s lack of Indian language experts for quality control.

The committee met on Monday on the topic — “Safeguarding citizens’ rights and preventing the misuse of social media/online platforms, including a particular focus on women’s safety in the digital space”.

In their defense, Facebook representatives at the meeting said the algorithm was designed to decide which ads perform better than others and that there is no company intervention in this process, a source said. source. Facebook also informed the panel that the algorithm does not distinguish between political and non-political ads.

‘Unfair advantage’

According to a recent Al Jazeera report, The Reporters’ Collective (TRC) and ad.watch analyzed data from all 5,36,070 political ads placed on Facebook and Instagram from February 2019 to November 2020, and found that the ” Facebook’s advertising platform “systematically undermines political competition in the world’s largest electoral democracy, giving the BJP an unfair advantage over its competitors”.

Committee members also asked Facebook officials to explain revelations made by whistleblower Sophie Zhang and others who spoke about the breach of privacy and misuse of personal data by Facebook, sources said. the social media giant.

Ms. Zhang sent a letter that was distributed to committee members. The committee requested permission from President Om Birla to allow his physical testimony. The President has yet to rule on the matter.

Facebook officials have denied all claims made by Ms. Zhang and other whistleblowers.

“Facebook officials claimed the whistleblower had no direct knowledge or access to the processes she commented on,” one of the members said. Members asked Facebook to send written responses.

Language specialists

Members also expressed concern that Facebook’s algorithm appears to be aligned with promoting and attributing hateful content. The social media giant assured members that their objections would be considered and a detailed response would be filed. Members also said that since in India – which is the company’s largest user base in the world – it is used in multiple languages, there should be enough language experts to handle the contents.

A fair amount of time was also spent understanding the Meta Verse. The standing committee is expected to submit its report on this widely contested subject shortly.

Facebook has been facing allegations of bias and failure to tackle hateful content on its platform in India for nearly two years. In 2020, it was reported that the company failed to implement its own hate speech guidelines in India in favor of certain people, including those associated with the ruling BJP. It was also alleged that despite being aware of the hateful content on its platform, Facebook was unable to act due to lack of regional language capabilities.