Facebook has once again been accused of not deleting hate speech posts made by leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The company allowed a post did not remove a hareful post by Shiladitya Dev, a BJP MLA from Assam, for nearly a year, reported TIME on Friday. Dev had shared a news report about a girl allegedly being drugged and raped by a Muslim man. He said this was how Bangladeshi Muslims target the "native people". Facebook removed the post only after TIME asked about it on August 21, said the report. Facebook has reportedly commissioned an independent report on its impact on human rights in India. Work on the report, being conducted by American law firm Foley Hoag, had begun before the WSJ report was published. However, TIME reported that Facebook declined to confirm the same. MediaNama has reached out to Facebook for comment. Earlier this month, Facebook was accused of political bias in India after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company had refused to take down hate speech content by politicians belonging to the BJP. Ankhi Das, Facebook's head of public policy in India, had advised against taking down such posts in order to avoid damaging the company's business prospects in India. Shiladitya Dev's post was one of around 180 posts flagged by activist group Avaaz in July 2019. In July 2019, Alaphia Zoyab, then an employee of Avaaz, had discussed the posts with Facebook employees in a video call. It was attended by Shivnath…
