From the first hearing of the Delhi Assembly’s Committee for Peace and Harmony on Tuesday on the allegations of bias against Facebook, it became clear that there is a lot that the world does not know about the platform’s content moderation policies. A number of these issues have been highlighted throughout the years but Wall Street Journal’s August 14 article, that reported the platform’s refusal to take down hate speech posted by leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) threw them in sharp relief in India. As a result, the Delhi Assembly’s Peace and Harmony Committee, constituted in March 2020 after the Delhi riots, chaired by Aam Aadmi Party MLA Raghav Chadha, summoned two witnesses for expert opinions on the subject: journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Nikhil Pahwa. Thakurta co-authored “The Real Face of Facebook in India” along with journalist Cyril Sam. Pahwa is the founder and editor of MediaNama, a digital publication that focuses on technology policy. Other MLAs on the Committee include Abdul Rehman, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Atishi, B.S. Joon, Dilip Kumar Pandey, Jarnail Singh, Kuldeep Kumar and Saurabh Bharadwaj, some of whom were present during the hearing. Disclosure: Nikhil Pahwa is the founder and editor of MediaNama. As a result, he was not involved in the process of reporting or editing this article. Note: Some of the quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. Facebook’s proximity to the ruling party Delhi Police should probe into Facebook’s role in the Delhi riots: Thakurta said that it…
