Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi speaking in Lok Sabha on Wednesday urged Centre to end the ‘influence and interference’ of social media giants on electoral politics that she called an issue of paramount importance.
Congress leader speaking in zero hour made this strong statement saying these global social media giants are being widely used to shape the political narrative by leaders and political parties. This statement came after Al Jazeera’s article on 14 March though she explicitly didn’t quote any media house or article but she said it has come under public notice repeatedly that these giants do not provide equal ground to all political parties.
The article published by Al Jazeera on March 14 stated that the company (Facebook now Meta) has actually cut down the opposition’s reach in the platform before 2019 general election and made ground easier for BJP. The article has analyzed 5,36,070 political advertisements on Facebook and Instagram ranging from March 2019 to November 2020 assessing the impact of these political advertisements on elections in the country
Is social media on its way to Become another EVM for Opposition
Sonia Gandhi also showed her concern to the fact that how the social harmony is actually getting hampered by the propaganda driven platforms and the youth is getting polarized by these platforms and it is in knowledge of these giants and they are actually getting benefited from it.
The growing connections between these companies, ruling government and other big corporations is making rise in misinformation and hatred among people by emotionally charging them, added Gandhi.
Adding to all this she said we need to safeguard our democracy and social harmony regardless of who’s in power and end this systematic influence in world’s largest democracy. Even Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a dig on Facebook (now Meta) by writing Meta- ‘worse’ for democracy on his twitter.
BJP hit back on Sonia Gandhi, it’s spokesperson Shazad Poonawala took a dig at the comments made by Gandhi in Lok Sabha by calling the statements by Congress and its leader same and typically without any strong ground whether it’s EVM or social media Congress every time fails to provide any evidence for the same.
He added, months back same Congress was praising these social media companies to safeguard the idea of free speech in country when government tried to bring stricter laws for it so that these platforms do not become the super editors and remain neutral.
Last time Facebook came under scrutiny was 2020 and 2014 both for its pro BJP moves when it was actually helping BJP with 2014 campaigning, said a report from Wall Street Journal and also the stepping down of its India policy head Ankhi Das who was alleged for not censoring free speech by helping BJP leader in Telangana T Raja Singh these allegations and report seem to make more sense now.
Though the government has actually came up with numerous policies regarding less influence of these social media companies but is most of the time criticized for curbing free speech, also mitigating opposition claims by comparing it with EVM allegation is not seems to be true because Facebook and it curbing free speech is actually a very big problem and almost all countries face it but still there is no full proof solution to this. We only can come together and fight against these giants to safeguard our democracy.
Published By : VATSAL KOTHA
Edited By : KHUSHI THAKUR
