Archives: News

Facebook's ad transparency measures around the funding of political campaigns have faced a setback in curbing activities of the alleged "personal election unit" of Amit Shah called The Association Of Billion Minds (ABM). ABM has been the secretive organisation of the BJP which has reportedly been managing ad campaigns of the party on social media platforms. The ABM has spawned widespread on-the-ground and digital operations for the BJP. ABM has been managing eight popular Facebook pages which have been allegedly garnering huge amounts of money for online ads for the BJP. These include pages like Bharat ke Mann Ki Baat and Nation With Namo. The transparency initiative of Facebook requires online ads to mention disclaimer with contact information of the person who paid for the ads. However, none of these eight Facebook pages mention anything about ABM.

The new feature introduced by WhatsApp called 'Checkpoint Tipline' is not a helpline number. It is a data-gathering research project which will help WhatsApp understand how misinformation spreads. According to Proto, which is a start-up WhatsApp has partnered with for its Checkpoint Tipline initiative, the service is not a helpline but a research project. However, it is too late for WhatsApp to spot and take actions through this project as the first phase of voting begins from April 11.

WhatsApp has launched a tipline to submit rumours and uncertain information. It is the latest step by the instant messaging platform to curb the spread of fake news in India ahead of general elections.

WhatsApp will now allow users to choose whether they want to be added to groups on the platform. The move is especially significant ahead of general elections when social media platforms are important for political campaigns. This new feature will ask people to seek the consent of a particular user before adding them on a group.

With just a week to go for the general elections, Facebook and Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp have become factories for fake news, according to a news report. A lot of activities are being run on Facebook where names of Pages, Groups and Accounts have been renamed to push a particular political agenda. Such activities of renaming pages have become common and artificial intelligence algorithms are not able to handle such a huge volume in a country where users of Facebook are around 30 crore. WhatsApp, on the other hand, has been a victim of fake news where 87,000 active groups are targeting millions for fake news forwards. Although Facebook has hit many fake pages and accounts linked to Congress and BJP, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done.

Facebook has claimed to be taking active steps to limit the spread of false news and misinformation ahead of the Indian general elections. The social media giant has taken a number of steps to curb the spread of fake news and flag misinformation which includes blocking fake accounts to employing third-party fact-checking organisations through campaign and voting. Samidh Chakrabarty, Director of Facebook's Product Management for Civic Integrity Division, has said that Facebook has partnered with Indian media organisations to flag stories in Hindi, English and other regional languages. He said that once a piece of information is flagged as false information, it's visibility on the Facebook newsfeed reduces by around 80 per cent. It is noteworthy that Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has been under constant scrutiny by the Indian government to take adequate measures to prevent the spread of fake news and misinformation ever since the spread of false information had allegedly led to various instances of mob lynching last year. Following this, WhatsApp limited the forwarding of message to from 256 to five recipients at a time. Social media companies have also presented a "Voluntary Code of Ethics for the General Elections 2019" to the Election monitoring body, which is a new requirement this year.

Facebook content moderators in India are facing a situation of working in high-pressure jobs for very little money, according to an investigative report by Reuters. Content moderators are hired on a contractual basis for a job by Genpact in Hyderabad which requires them to review around 2,000 posts on Instagram and Facebook over an eight-hour shift, which means they spend roughly four minutes on each post, all for low pay. Salary slips indicate that the entry level payment for such jobs is ₹1 lakh annually, in addition to transport facilities to-and-fro from their homes. Facebook has denied allegations made by their Hyderabad-based employees and said that the benefits which come along with their salaries make the actual salary much higher. Facebook also said that it is making several changes which includes drafting a new code of conduct for outsourcing partners and introducing an annual compliance audit of its vendor policies, to improve the condition of its reviewers.

The Parliamentary panel on information technology has asked Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to ensure that the platforms are not misused to create division, incite violence, pose a threat to India's security, or allow the interference of foreign powers in the upcoming general elections. Citing tension between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack, the panel asked Facebook to ensure that there is no leakage of information through social media. The panel also told Facebook that protecting citizens' data was as much a priority as national security, and asked the company to speak of what it will do to meet its objectives in the next ten days. Joel Kaplan, vice-president of global public policy of Facebook, accepted that there is a need for corrective measures an that the company was ready to put it in place. During the panel discussion, Kaplan was also accompanied by Ajit Mohan, managing director of Facebook India. Kaplan also stated that the company would be in touch with Election Commission and ministries on information related to identity and location related to advertisers. All information related to political campaign would be put up on a special web page for users, the company said.

WhatsAppp has refused to comply with the Indian government over its privacy policy of end-to-end encryption, which, WhatsApp said, is not ready to compromise with. The government wants WhatsApp to track any person suspected of spreading fake news or misinformation. WhatsApp, however, has declined to comply because the company is not ready to break the promise of privacy and freedom of speech it offers. The company might have to re-think its policies because the consequences out of this disagreement could turn out to be against the company's policies.

Facebook has restored the page of Dhruv Rathee followingpublic outcry over briefly banning for drawing implicit parallels between fascism and rise of right-wing politics in India. Rathee is an Indian YouTuber and has one of the most active Facebook pages in India. He had highlighted in a post how Hitler remained unmarried, was more popular than the Nazi party, used propaganda, and received support from industrialists. Facebook first determined the post to be against its community standards even though it was criticism and not an endorsement of fascism. For this, the social media platform drew criticism from public figures. Facebook, subsequently, restored the Page.