The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written a letter to Facebook's India CEO Ajit Mohan seeking details regarding Facebook's content moderation practices and the company's efforts to prevent online harm, the Economic Times has reported. MediaNama reached out to MeitY but could not independently confirm the development. The government is "alarmed" by the recent revelations made by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a source told ET. According to the source, the ministry has also "questioned Facebook on the due diligence that is prescribed under the IT Rules.” Facebook declined to comment on the development. The leaks by Haugen reveal, among other things, that Facebook refrained from banning right-wing groups in India that spread anti-Muslim content due to fear of backlash from the Indian government. Opposition parties and civil society members earlier called for a joint parliamentary probe into Facebook, but the IT Ministry is seemingly taking the investigation into its own hands. What the Facebook whistleblower said about hate speech Former Facebook employee-turned whistleblower Frances Haugen recently revealed critical details about Facebook’s content moderation in a series of interviews: How much Facebook engaged with hate speech: Haugen revealed that an internal study conducted this year at Facebook estimated that the platform takes action only against 3-5% of hate speech and six-tenths of 1% of violence and incitement content on Facebook. Facebook investing little outside English-speaking countries: Haugen also revealed that in its ‘integrity spending’ Facebook allocates 87% of it to English-speaking countries who form 9% of its users.…
