New Delhi:
The Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear a plea by Facebook India Vice President Ajit Mohan, who has challenged a notice from the Delhi Assembly’s “Peace and Harmony” committee over the social media platform’s alleged complicity in the violence that struck the national capital in February.
A three-member bench of the top court – consisting of Justices SK Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari – will hear the plea via video conferencing.
On Sunday the Delhi Assembly’s committee had sent a fresh and “final” summons to Facebook India, to appear before it over allegations of “deliberate inaction on the part of (the) social media platform to apply hate speech rules”.
That was days after Facebook India executives, including Mr Mohan, snubbed a call to appear (on September 15).
In a written response to that summons they said they had already appeared before a parliamentary panel on this issue and, therefore, the Delhi Assembly should withdraw its summons.
The “Peace and Harmony” committee was set up by the Delhi Assembly (where the ruling AAP holds 62 of 70 seats) after riots over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act killed over 50 people and injured hundreds.
The committee’s decision to summon Facebook India was over complaints of “deliberate and intentional inaction to contain hateful content” in the country.
This was after reports by US publications cited interviews with unnamed insiders alleging that hate speech rules were not applied in the case of inflammatory posts by BJP leaders and right-wing activists.
One report – by the Wall Street Journal – identified Ankhi Das, Facebook India’s policy chief, as saying punishing violations by BJP workers “would damage the company’s business prospects in the country”.
Another, by TIME magazine, referred to a video by BJP leader Kapil Mishra – a video that was among several by BJP leaders played by the Delhi High Court in its hearing on the matter.
In response Facebook has insisted that it applies hate speech rules uniformly and without any consideration to political parties that may be involved.
The social media giant has already met a parliamentary panel – headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor – once this month and is due to appear before that panel again.
The US media reports triggered a political row between the BJP and the Congress, which has written letters to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Amid allegations that it controls social media narratives, the BJP hit back by pointing out the Congress was approached by data firm Cambridge Analytica to “weaponise” data before last year’s Lok Sabha elections.
