Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi has called for the formulation of guidelines to hold social media websites accountable. She has written to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, telling him that the current legal framework under which companies like Facebook operate, which provides them with immunity on the basis of their status as intermediaries, "cannot be accepted anymore". Chaturvedi was writing primarily to demand an investigation into the reports of more than 80,000 fake accounts that were created to "malign" the Maharashtra state government (run by a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance) and Mumbai police, in relation to the latter's investigation into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Earlier this week, Mumbai police had identified automated bots on various social media platforms that tagged with hashtags such as "#justiceforsushant". Police commissioner Param Bir Singh said the social media campaign has been run against Mumbai police to "demoralise" them and target them with "abusive tone". Chaturvedi also referred to a recent University of Michigan study, which linked ruling Bharatiya Janata Party members with conspiracy theories promoting the idea of Rajput having been murdered, and not die by suicide. The study showed an important role in politicians from the BJP in promoting the "murder" theory. Although, Chaturvedi did not name BJP directly in her letter to Prasad. On Facebook's political bias, and lack of accountability The Shiv Sena leader wrote of the allegations of political bias against Facebook, which were reported by the Wall Street Journal in August. The Journal had reported that Facebook…
