Deccan Herald : Aug 17, 2020, 09:07 AM
New Delhi: Latching on to a report of Wall Street Journal that suggested that Facebook India turned a blind eye to a hate speech of a BJP leader and three others to ward off any damage to its business prospects, Rahul Gandhi on Sunday launched a blistering attack on the BJP and RSS that triggered a ‘loser’ jibe from Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.As the battle of barbs played out, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology expressed intent to take up the matter.“The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology would certainly wish to hear from Facebook about these reports and what they propose to do about hate-speech in India,” Tharoor tweeted.The WSJ report quoting its former and current employees said how the social media platform ignored controversial comments of BJP legislator T Raja Singh, who said Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot, called Muslims traitors and threatened to raze mosques and controversial remarks on three other accounts of “Hindu nationalist individuals and groups”.Rahul Gandhi reacted on Sunday alleging “BJP and RSS control Facebook & WhatsApp in India. They spread fake news and hatred through it and use it to influence the electorate. Finally, the American media has come out with the truth about Facebook.”Law Minister Prasad was quick to react saying "losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP & RSS."Raking up the 2018 row ahead 2019 general election regarding Congress allegedly roping in the UK-based firm Cambridge Analytica to explore doing election strategy for the party that involved data mining of Facebook posts and tweets, Prasad told Rahul “you were caught red-handed in alliance with Cambridge Analytica & Facebook to weaponise data before the elections & now have the gall to question us?”While Congress had then acknowledged that such a proposition was explored with the then Cambridge Analytica's CEO Alexander Nix, it remained at the stage of proposal and no deal was signed.Prasad did not stop at that. He also dragged in the recent Bengaluru violence over a controversial post to attack the Congress leader as he claimed that “the fact is that today access to information and freedom of expression has been democratized. It is no longer controlled by retainers of your family and that is why it hurts.”“Btw, haven’t yet heard your condemnation of the Bangalore riots. Where did your courage disappear?,” Praasad tweeted.