Update at 15:08 IST, August 31: In response to our questions about Ankhi Das's posts, a Facebook spokesperson said, "These posts are taken out of context and don’t represent the full scope of Facebook’s efforts to support the use of our platform by parties across the Indian political spectrum in 2014. Facebook’s public policy team operates with integrity and any suggestion that their efforts are motivated by partisanship discounts their hard work every day.” *Original story published at 13:01 IST, August 31 Ankhi Das, Facebook India's top public policy executive, was accused of fresh allegations of political bias, as revealed by her posts in the company's internal communications platforms, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Over the past several years, Das reportedly was overt in her support for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, while disparaging its main opposition, the Congress party. Another major revelation in the report, also indicating to Facebook's favourable treatment of the BJP, is that the company had declined to act after discovering that the party was circumventing its political ad transparency requirements. BJP had reportedly used newly-created organisations to buy ads worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that didn't disclose party affiliation, in violation of Facebook's rules. Instead of taking down the pages or flagging the ads, Facebook raised the matter privately with the BJP, the report noted. Das has been the centre of controversy for the past two weeks, when the Journal had reported that Facebook had refused to take down hate speech content…
