Hundreds of millions of users are generating digital traces of their daily lives on social media. Social media serve many purposes, the most salient of which relate to their original functions of communication and social connectedness
Real Face of Facebook in India by Cyril Sam & Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is Propelling a politically delicate book in a politically charged condition that exists currently is for sure testing. Be that as it may, for a book that draws in its readers, remain on its pages, and relate with the book’s data, it isn’t so testing.
It is about how internet-based life has become a purposeful publicity weapon and disseminator of disinformation and misrepresentation. Without a doubt, it has been conceivable because of the promptly available Internet, the bounty of advanced cells, and modest information.
In excess of 300 million Indians are accepted to be currently on WhatsApp, making the nation by a long shot its greatest market. It is never again TV and political assemblies of changed nature alone; Facebook too has become the battleground of political decision in the Indian setting. The book spread across chapters deals with not only the dissemination of Information through Facebook but also conveys the power of WhatsApp and usage for political weaponization for agenda creation. Facebook has connected more than 2 billion people in just over a decade and turned it into a global nation. Facebook has also accumulated one of the longest remains of personal data, which later proved as a treasure trove for companies and its revenue model and even it’s our data only made Facebook enter Forbes list of 500 (fortune).
Openness, transparency, togetherness, new communities, open networks: these were some of the promises with which Facebook came to our lives, very soon we found that it was actually a trap” well said by Approrvanand, Hindi Professor at Delhi University.
We are definitely trapped in an Echo chamber where the times have definitely come were the tools created by Techies of all time and have also been successful in being in a negative way of acting as a disseminator of Falsehood & hatred. Dangers of Learning at Whatsapp University these days have been exposed to people at a very big level. Warmongering, Hate Speeches is so commonly used on the platforms as weapons of mass destruction that incidents like mob lynching become so commonly used in the era of WhatsApp University.
Reading the book, not just gave me an insight as to how powerful did WhatsApp became in the falsehood and how has to Facebook instances of being untrue. For E.g. A Volunteer had put a fabricated post claiming that Akhilesh Yadav, them CM had slapped his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. The message went viral and reached Shah. Shah indirectly said” This is something worth doing but don’t do it” to the volunteer. Faking and Bosting about their power of Social Media, he even added that “We have 32 Lakh people in our WhatsApp groups, hence they can do it. Citing more examples of it being an exposed platform of hatred, till October 2018 (12 months period) 30 individuals had been mob lynched post circulation of altered fake news information & hatred.The fact cannot be ignored that the party runs parallel news and information on Social Media (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram) steeped in Hate Speech, Extreme Speech, and islamophobia. Watching it from the BJP’s side definitely brings out more instances of communal hatred but even Factbook’s side is and was never to clear as well, At a time when Facebook has grown its digital monopoly using its new tools such as Instagram & WhatsApp, has come under global scrutiny and criticism over its claims of neutrality and misuse of data by Cambridge Analytica and others, its operations in India has been increasingly questioned. Let me cite some examples:
On Aug 2018, The Caravan was not allowed to boost an Article that was Critical of the BJP president. Facebook is known for instant approval of ads but during this time this took them 11 days to give approval and by that time the story had left its potential. Now, some of you might think that what is its relation of being late: it can also be an error, in February 2019, HuffPost India reported that Facebook had claimed of 7500 people been tasked with Reviewing Objectionable content during the election period. Though Caravan is known to host events in collaboration with Facebook.
Few days of the Caravan article of Shah not boosted, Rifat Jawaid of Janta Ka Reporter and few other journalists who were known to write against the BJP have their accounts blocked by Facebook. Now, just think that how can be fakebook’s timing clarification work in situations like these. Blocking someone’s account just because of them being honest about their reportage doesn’t mean that they will be blocked, this is completely unethical of Facebook.
Amit Malviya, BJPs head of IT Cell calling the upcoming elections as a WhatsApp election clearly specifies the party’s support towards falsehood and misinformation. WhatsApp & Facebook has now become a full arsenal of the party and has full control over the platforms of the BJP. India has definitely emerged as the biggest disinformation factory in the world in recent years and according to me, the major onus goes to Facebook Platforms. Most of the numbers come from the ruling parties. Political Parties will continue to weaponize social media platforms for their own greedy nature and willingness of spreading falsehood and being a disseminator of false information. According to a study, Social Media has the power to influence 161 constituencies out of 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies. (especially Facebook).It should not be problematic for Facebook if someone name it “FakeBook”. Its initial idea of making networks and forming communities have been fast-paced and tuned and broaden its horizon by spreading political agendas and weaponization through powerful options such as “Like, Share, Comment, Follow or Subscribe”
Jai Modi Raj ran an advertisement campaign of Manipulated political images to gaining followers on the page. The Page showed Rahul Gandhi with a Muslim cap and Modi with Red and yellow marks on his head. Captioned as “One Fights for Truth, the other Advocates Terrorism, the page also circulated posts citing Sonia Gandhi as the world’s 4th richest person and congress being the world’s 4th most corrupt party…
If we see It from the other side also, then according to the article “The Indian Government is Treating the lynching problem as a fake news substance and is placing its onus on WhatsApp and Facebook. As a contribution and WhatsApp’s willingness on to the curd of fake news, the company launched a Fact News Verification WhatsApp Number wherein users can send images of doubt or text and the team may respond, but the solution needs to come from a large scale. Platforms like Boom Live and Alt-News are doing their bit but it does not seem to be enough but the face can never be ignored that Modi and BJP have been serial offenders as far as propagandizing disinformation is concerned. Pages like Jai Modi Raj and Post Card News has been also seen spreading hatred and Fake News About Senior Journalists such as Barkha Dutt and WB CM Mamata Banerjee also with instances of Journalist “Ravish Kumar” flooding with abusive and threatening calls from a member or supported of BJP who shares his contact and makes it viral saying “Please Don’t Call Ravish”
Recently, the Facebook account of Ravish Kumar was down for a while after he was given a reason being sharing the numbers of people through screenshots, this happened when Ravish shared the instance of him getting messages and threatening calls on his Facebook page. Accepting Facebook’s policy he removed phone numbers that were going against the policies. But is sharing anyone’s number on Facebook, not against fakebook’s policies? Taking Time to ponder on such a situation will definitely make you think more of such instances. Ravish Followed the policy but Facebook Never. The above instance never cites a positive image but in turn, gives chance to people especially the ones against the views and news to target their no so beloved politicians and ruin the scenario with a bunch full of hatred and communal violence at times. Facebook has changed society considerably and to date, the numbers of these journalists are openly shared to challenge them on their views and use abusive languages as well.
The shift in opinions and views are the way people react but not too quickly, On 30th March, Mark Zuckerberg wanted while writing in Washington Post his desire for government to regulate and control the content on the internet, it was Mark only who earlier wanted Government’s to stay away from internet regulation. In a country like India, the level of education in some parts of the country is too less that some people believe in the idea of imparting knowledge through Facebook and WhatsApp deeming it to be a self-learned university for them.
Facebook’s point can be clearly understood that some of the fake news are being spotted and removed based on their recent study but the fact can also not be ignored that all of them can’t be altered as the transparency reports don’t tell us about Bengali, Marathi or other Indian Languages and also their reach and effects. It’s not that the Makers cant improve the situation but it’s just that they want just to be termed as destroyers and not creators. The algorithms can only be altered by the coders and the people at Facebook and not anyone else.
For E.g.- A Person who has written a book has only the right to alter it on the new information and only he can do that and non-other can made editions and alterations, similar is the scenario here. The fact can’t be ignored that the impacts of Facebook and WhatsApp are being studied but its penetration in India has not broadened but narrowed down and also lagged behind. The new era will definitely notice the politics of hatred and propagandistic but through Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Data Analytics. Pen Is Mightier than a sword, Post is Powerful that a Handwritten Written Article boosted through hashtags and has the potential to destroy or make careers of crores of people.Times have changed these days people prefer using social media to make or break news as well. The inputs or output desks of many news channels have added twitter as a source of information but again if not found or verified unlike “Rowan Atkinson” died in an accident can cause blunders, or even the fake news story of Rape cases against “Delhi cm” which surfaced on websites and twitter or the digital manipulated images of our prime minister “Modi” having a look on to the flood victims or areas hit by them. Instances have not always been in favor of the ruling party, it was Narendra Modi’s image photoshopped with Hafiz Saeed when he went to Pakistan instead of Nawaz Shariff, so it’s not only the game of the center but mostly the car is being driven by them only.
A Book by Swati Chaturvedi “I am a troll” -The BJP’s digital army cell is successful in creating hatred across the country, be it people paid tweeting for the BJP to create agitation between Muslims and Hindus or sharing manipulated news stories and images not just on Facebook but WhatsApp and newly added Instagram too. The daily propaganda of attacking and abusing senior journalists has been a serious task every day at the party’s IT Room says Mahavir, a serious troll who used to work for the BJP to abuse these journalists like Barkha Dutt, Ravish Kumar, etc the book tells. Moving further the Page “Jai Modi Raj” even shared a photoshopped image of Modi Standing Next to former PM “Atal Behari Vajpayee’s” body. When investigated by Alt News, most of the owners of the page had their Display Pictures with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the same was the situation with Mahavir and other Troll army people I mentioned about in the above writings.
Not just people but companies also have been affected
- When Snapchat was blamed by many people but instead the misunderstanding of people made Snapdeal lose its value
- The share prices of “Infibeam” collapsed by 71% on a single day after circulations of them being altering the accounting statements and finance but later was found it to be false but the loss could not be covered up.
According to the pieces of evidence, certain senior employees of the management of Facebook are in good contact with India’s ruling party, the bond exists quite well before Modi became Prime Minister of in May 2014, not Just India but Facebook has a Track record of working.
Growth of the platforms has been exponential in the coming times if we see the profit and growing number of the base of users and subscribers and even profits. Internet is considered as free is the common myth the world is living in. A Very well said by anonyms that One who has the data of the entire world is the richest person of the world and so is Facebook & WhatsApp these days, these two companies have noticed a huge and tremendous amount of revenue and users. With 15 million posts first India office, Facebook and WhatsApp have clocked an Annual Turnover of 3000 crores (400 Million Dollars) With 294 Million users in India the growth of Facebook has led to an annual turnover of 40 Billion dollars.
Not just India, but throughout the world fakebook’s presence is noted as a group with political aids and involvements. At Trump’s time, the organization’s campaign was noted to run favorable to Trump as the president and even the Barack Obama was affectionately described as world’s first “Facebook President” After meeting of PM Modi with Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, Facebook said that “Usually around the world who has the maximum number of Followers on Facebook wins” Current BJP (Union Minister for Railways) Piyush Jain was an SMS vendor in 2009, a banker Amit Malviya who now heads the IT Cell of BJP started a group called Friends of BJP in 2009. In the beginning, the group did not yield many results and he lost 15th general elections. Rajesh Jain played a very vital role since 2009 for building online landscape of PM Modi on several platforms, he currently sits in the New Delhi Office and has launched a variety of domains in order to gain followers and supporters of PM Modi.He was basically the man behind NITI Platforms and Ayog. Jain with the support of the current Prasar Bharti Chief- Shekhar Vempati helped Jain launching India272.com again for propagandizing about Modi and in order to Create followings for him.
Rajesh Jain
Rajesh Jain, an internet entrepreneur created such strong presence of BJP on the internet by the use of the first and one of its kind algorithms to identify and target voters but one of the loopholes which the parties have been using is that A Special Database was constructed only to identify and target Muslims and those belonging to minorities by this the social media managers also knew whom “not” to target. Now, just ponder on the situation when all this was told on the basis of anonymity, how should BJP be using these databases these days? –“War Mongering, Hatred or Developmental Politics and Economies ?” The attempt of Jain to market the voter rolls to companies and corporates can be seen as a violation of the Election Commission Acts & Rules of Confidentiality.
With the increase in the following of Narendra Modi and his persona and aura, he got to know the importance of Social Media in his life even before he became the PM in 2014. So it was much before the times that of Rajesh Jain since when BJP’s use of Social Media started to become a carrier of falsehood and public disseminator of Faking News on their new sarcastically called “Algorithm for Fakebook” Be it anything, it can’t be moved further and create a drastically positive image with its IT Advisors, Rajesh Jain played a major role in Spreading the IT footprint since 2013, the beginning of BJP’s talks post IT Operations with the then Two Giants (WhatsApp & Facebook) portrayed at what level could BJP utilize the platforms in their favor. It’s quite visible that BJP was establishing a brand and not a party, by then along with these tech giants, all major Advertising Professionals like Prahlad Kakkar and Actors Like Anupam Kher started to portray the larger than Life image of Modi stating 2014. IT Advisors like Hiren Joshi who was responsible for one of today’s digital footprint of Modi is also known to have special contacts with the senior officials of Facebook. BJP is successful in reshaping the thought that Politicians are only for the development purposes or follow and are based on only development politics but the scenario seems that they are everything except Developmental Politics, be it religious divide, rioting situations or even make people forcefully believe untrue Agendas, be it Hindutva in this case. Ache Din agenda created by marketing & advertising companies that played a crucial role in Today’s Modi Image. In the entire era where BJP and especially the IT people reshaped the image of PM Modi, then along with Actors & Advertising Professionals were Strategists like Prashant Kishore as well as one of the greatest advisor that PM had and was also behind Chai Pe Charcha, Manthan and Run for Unity. Party in India, have done everything which a brand does in order to survive, be it a mix of development and propagandizing or just many other things apart from these mentioned. 4 crucial teams as IT advisors worked as brand consultants for Mr. Modi but denial of everyone to have a conversation with the writers of the book also conveys a very strong point.
“From All Knowledge, only the required one was to be shared to people, volunteers and public, this is what the reason for the success of any organization,” says the then national convener of BJP’s IT Cell Vinit Goenka while talking to the writers of this book, the gradual agenda for Winning started with targeting of 275 seats then became 282 seats in 2014 LS Elections. It’s just that the party started with an objective of contesting as an organization or even a company. Rajesh Jain’s anger over the ongoing Congress era could be seen as “ For 2014 Elections, I had spent 3 years and my own money to build a team of 100 people to help with Modi’s campaign when asked why he replied “Because I trusted Modi led BJP government could end Congress’ anti prosperity programs and put India to Prosperity” Now if we look about how experienced our Netas are then Jain served Board of Director of NTPC (having no experience of Power Sector, he even served the board of UIDAI. Taking about Sambit Patra, BJP’s National Spokesperson and Spinmaster is the independent director of ONGC without having any experience in Petroleum.
Taking Facebook and the expansion of digital footprint is essential in the times of the internet penetration and involvement in everything. The party’s micro-targeting using their algorithms with its one of the kind method to Identify voters garnished many voters for him and many in support as well. During the time of the image building, it also seemed that people were unhappy with Modi & Shah’s highly centralized and individualized decision making power and authority. The “IT Cell’s establishment initially was to just communicate digitally with Volunteers and people and not to abuse people on Social Media platforms” says “Rajnath Singh, who set up the cell along with Pradyut Bora in 2007 who was an IIM graduate and joined the party before he got angry and concerned about the centralized decision making ofModi-Shah.
The same Bora later even compared BJP’s IT cell with SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India) which was banned by the government for its extremism. But it seems in 2019, general elections “People no longer blindly trust everything that is put on WhatsApp” On a 2-hour long interview with Goenka, the writers of the book asking “Who helped Whom More, Facebook Helped BJP or Modi Helped Facebook? To which Goenka replied, “That a difficult question, I wonder whether BJP helped Facebook more than Facebook helped BJP, we helped each other”.
BJP’s IT presence did a commendable job in creating a digital footprint of the party and the credit goes to not “Modi” but its Media Advisors like Mr. Bora, Mr. Rajesh Jain, etc. Finally, we have something for whom we can’t give credit to Modi, his IT presence. Promotion never stopped for the party, promoting Modi has always been on a top priority and this reshaped and enhanced when people like Shivnath Thukral, an Ex NDTV anchor entered BJP to Online Campaign for Modi in October 2009. After Thukral joined the policy team at Facebook India, he indirectly became a part of the BJP’s IT Cell.
Thukral created “Mera Bharosa” page had headlines such as “How Sonia Gandhi Pumps up Onion Prices?, How Sonia Made India worse than Africa ?, and “Impotent Congress” In the same time articles such as “Modi & Licence Raj” explained the positives if Modi comes to power. The similar tactics have become the trend for BJP to target the opposition indirectly over the social media using its platforms of supporters and agenda creation. We hire the best people for the available roles not just in India but Globally and the same was the process with Thukral hiring. The Facebook Spokesperson said, now just think what does the spokesperson means by “The Best” and in what sense? Business Tycoons and people at higher management left their positions just in order to serve and promote as Messiah. Party could also see adopting a method of giving tickets to those having more number of followers and likes on their Facebook page.Facebook, WhatsApp & Instagram together comprise of the biggest infrastructure and data which has never been noticed earlier in the history of humankind. Extreme Content creates extreme emotions and then increases engagement. Advertisers accepted this change and
Re-targeted agendas. As the story deepens, politics statured to take turns and converting into Games. When Fakebook Senior Representative, Akhil Das was asked that the reason behind the denial of permissions to Congress about paid for advertisements that would propagate “the opposition” on Rafael and other deals, Das expressed about her being unaware about any such happenings definitely portrays how bluntly Facebook does not want to say anything about the controversy. Amid growing hatred especially during elections on Social Media, its time that India needs a special “Honest Ads Act” to promote regulation of political advertising online by Facebook and Google unlike the US had introduced in 2017. As per the Act all companies and parties are to disclose spending on Campaigns on TVs, Newspapers, etc under the federal election campaign act 1971 of the United States but again all acts have loopholes, similarly in October same year according to VICE, Media Organisations bought fake advertisements for 100 US senators and all of them were approved by Facebook itself.
Technology is utilized in its true positive use can continue to foster great results but if used for Propaganda can yield negatives as well. An increase in the number of Government’s response to getting more detailed reports of the users seems to be prompt but needs to have more activity as well. 5,62,000 users’ of India out of 87 Million in US data breach in Cambridge Analytica has questioned Facebook’s credibility and had also affected badly. Although Cambridge Analytica Claimed to be working for JDU -BJP. Even the person who exposed Cambridge involved the firm is not only Bihar elections but almost all states and strategizing and narrowing of data for retargeting people but once again the person from BJP denied the claims. In fact, it was not just BJP but people from Analytica even met Congress as a possible client of them but both of the functionaries denied having engaged with them but on the other hand, Congress’s view on confidentiality of the user’s privacy again portrays a positive view about demarcation about what to post or share and what no to but again the ties can’t be forgotten. Later when Praveen Chakravarty, Congress’ head of data analytics department apologized said that every bit of information can be converted and is never private and especially on the internet.As the company was suffering due to this CA scam, the losses increased, the Indian government sent a show-cause notice to Facebook and Cambridge Analytica asking about the Infrastructure urgently in India. During the crisis, the founders of Instagram & WhatsApp even left the board seeing the speculations. Also, the time, when Facebook had to apologize during the genocide of Myanmar Rohingyas post growing posts of hatred and fake news, the company said they were late in addressing and removing the posts, the same things happened in Sri Lanka as well. Facebook needs to address the problem of Fake news and needs to rebuild its algorithm to fight the problem.
The incidents grew at a global level as an example, I would like to draw your attention towards the case where “a private newspaper in Brazil revealed that Jair Bolsonaro and its linked companies flooded WhatsApp groups and Facebook with disinformation and inflammatory content. People were hired to spread hatred and create propagandas.
It’s not just India but the entire world needs a better political system and most importantly leaders to only work and not create any hatred and misunderstandings. With President Trump, openly referring CNN to be spreading Fake News seriously needs to be addressed.
Even in Cambodia, in a probe on President Hum Sen, he found that he was buying shares & likes from an Indian based company in order to boost and promote hate speech and false propaganda using Facebook and WhatsApp.
In India, as in Brazil, supporters of political parties are reportedly using SIMs registered in foreign countries to bypass restrictions.To combat at a level, Facebook in 2018 partnered with Washington based Atlantic Council and Digital Forensic Research Lab to monitor the issues including many in India. The growing number of disinformation cases not just in India but around the world is influencing politics at a very gigantic level. Facebook has frequently prevailed with regards to causing governmental issues to appear to a game and all the while, disturbed and end of the week frameworks and data to control discretionary procedures. Disinformation is the least expensive instrument and depicts a level at which government officials can tumble so as to trimming and gather votes. The US has been a perfect example of how Facebook influenced the general elections in the country. On the of chance that such things keep on developing Facebook needs to shield its frameworks from assaults from different nations and ensure its qualities and picture before the world. The propaganda of the ruling party has also been of attacking and targeting minority communities and increase the cases of mob lynching and follow the decades-old tradition of politicians to garnish votes in terms of religious, post this comes targeting individual journalists for being against the party and ideology. Facebook was also seen dogging from the fact that their relationship with the ruling party came to limelight, so they continued to reshape the to be formed opinions about the company by placing ads in Newspapers and magazines about its partnership with certain fact-checking websites. Also, it was seen that the global outreach director of Politics, Facebook was unhappy to the top officials of Facebook India to representatives of the Government of India headed by PM Modi as well as other important people.
PM Modi is also the first Prime Minister of India who has not to address any press conferences but have believed in Pre-Scripted shows with Friendly journalists. We can’t deny the way that Facebook helped Modi in reshaping feelings and picture tuning of the man himself to mark him as a savior. It’s not simply that just BJP has utilized the stages unwisely yet even congress did that however the numbers when contrasted with BJP’s spread of disinformation are considerably less. India is where government officials have a most loved bit of cake to pick up votes and that is on the premise on Hindu Muslims, one cannot state that Congress didn’t rehearse this modus- operandi, theirs could be not exactly the same as BJP however even they followed a similar course till some extent.
Facebook & WhatsApp could be seen taking the issue seriously but only at times as in :
- WhatsApp became the first company to limit the shares
- Facebook Doubled the Team of Reviewers from 10,000 to 20,000
- WhatsApp Awards for Research Teams of Understanding How Disinformation spreads of 50,000 $
The penetration of Technology even in the electoral processes hampers when cases of a software company BJP uses to large broadcast WhatsApp messages and create groups on Facebook and manage them simply gives out a strong message that how Facebook is currently being managed and how is disinformation spreading and at what level. I do not need to mention any stats? Isn’t it visible enough? And it comes to worse when the availability of such software comes with a little price of 500 rupees. The turmoil, the country faced post the rising tide of nationalism has driven people to spread fake news and such misuse of platforms should never be taken as a correct approach but the hard to digest fact is that it is true. Everything has been influencing the actual development politics to just mere Messiah of Disinformation which Facebook has become these days.
No matter to what extent is the politicians at the world growing and continue to regain positions but Facebook has evidently been facing the credibility crises for a very long time now and especially around politics. Be it the US and even in India, even the Election commission of India has been silent about its relationship with Facebook especially around general elections. There is no place of “TERRORISM & TERRORIST” groups and content on Facebook, Its good to hear that someone from Facebook is accepting about the type of Content be it directly but the hard-hitting fact of being truthful.
Some Great examples of misinformation & falsehood can be :Why should the model code of conduct only specifies the 48 hour period and not before? Is it a matter to ponder on.- In order to gain and maintain virality, the digital conglomerates should be seen crossing limits of making content viral, not just the conglomerates but even the NAMO app of our Hon’ble. Prime Minister was seen spreading a false claim about “Rahul Gandhi” eating beat during one of the visits to Mount Kailash. The post also specifies that “he respects Islam and Insults Hinduism”
also, a state BJP member of Haryana Vijetha Malik posted a falsely attributed quote of Nehru as “Christian By Education, Muslim by culture and Hindu by merely by Accident” The false quote circulated by Sachin Pilot of “Helping Pakistan Repaying of Debts instead of building Statue of Unity” even took momentum in the viral fever.
One of the posts even mentioned that in a meeting between Rahul Gandhi and Muslims, Gandhi pledged to never wear Janaeu ( Sacred Thread by Hindus), whereas no such meetings ever took place. In May after the results of the Karnataka Assembly elections, “80% of Christians voted but just 58 percent of Hindus while 42 % of Hindus did not even vote.” Again a piece of misinformation to polarise two different communities. When asked from Amit Malviya about spreading of Misinformation and falsehood, even he agreed by saying that this is “some scope of the same”-
NAMO launched to interact with the PM has rapidly grown towards spreading falsehoods as stated in the examples above. Facebook and India’s own NAMO app is nowhere different especially when propagandizing is concerned, FB is a global spread while NAMO is just Indian way. May launched by the government to interact more with the people but it seems the people only are making it a menace. According to the book, the company which built the NAMO App has 62.5 crores from government contracts. , a Facebook page “The India Eye” also has seen many disinformation posts. The established links between this page and the first that developed NAMO App clearly specify them working on a common agenda of falsehood and polarization of communities. At Facebook’s point, the sense of Manipulating Algorithms can be noticed when “Individuals and Facebook pages were shut out of the platform for violating community standards but which fell into a distinct pattern- those in favor of the Modi regime were spared and those against or in opposition were removed without explanation”
The examples became more clear when accounts of Rajiv Tyagi, a former Indian Air Force Officer got blocked on being writing against the BJP government and this happened twice for a period of 30 days each. Another is when a website “FekuExpress” writing against the government lost their page due to so-called violations of Facebook standards. “Now isn’t it biased? aren’t the algorithms manipulated? if no, then where were standards when Ravish Kumar’s number was actively being shared on Facebook saying “Please Don’t Call Ravish”, isn’t this is a standard policy violation ?- Facebook needs to answer these questions.”
Now, most of you must be thinking why am I not referring to any pages of the BJP not being punished, so here is an example, On July 2018, a Facebook Live broadcasted video where Five Right-Wing Hindu men were asking Hindus to kill Muslims, the video was live broadcasted on “Yogi Adityanath’s Facebook Page”, hence was shared widely. The link was taken down by Facebook but nothing happened to the page. And the person who shared the video is still on Facebook, now let me know, aren’t these examples of Biasness ?, Where are the standards now for Facebook for hate speech ?
It’s really a time for Facebook to sincerely work towards its systems and stop working for and with the government to protect itself from any kind of hatred not just from India but throughout the world. Facebook as a platform was launched with a great vision of connecting people but I am sure with the rightful improvement of the algorithms and without manipulations can work positive of the conglomerate’s image ( all platforms). Handling incidents like Phulwama, which was a major shock that not only took lives of our 40 CRPF jawans but even has recorded in the history of deadly attacks on our soldiers.
Within hours of terror attack in Pulwama, messages started to blame the oppositions, and especially Rahul Gandhi for the attack, the virality was such that videos of Syria & Iraq were shared on Facebook, the scale of circulation fake news was on its peak after Pulwama. Even the fake video circulated that claimed that the Pakistani army had admitted that 200 terrorists were killed by IAF in the
26 February airstrike, showed how unethical Facebook became in showing and promoting such videos.
The video shared depicted a Pakistani soldier buried was shown out of context, upon investigation by AltNews came the true facts. Even ministers like Ravi Shankar Prasad, sharing the video in order to defame Rahul Gandhi portrays at what level out leaders can be at in order to show someone the false ego and power. Also, all the number of deaths are till date never realized by the government, all the figures are coming from the international media, shouldn’t we believe in our government for the official figures? – Facebook’s 3 out 7 themselves published false reports and misinformation about the attack on their platforms, so the point is “What about Community Standards? Do they exist ?”- Even one of the videos which claimed to be true of a missile hitting a building was taken and shared from a video game. Going one step ahead one of the Gujarat Based Newspaper had a headline saying “Modi has Blown of 350 terrorists” – The point is where is the report and how is this official ?- This book has helped me to know so much about what’s happening on Facebook and is really an eye-opener.
Moving ahead when I read about the fact that a photoshopped image of Rahul Gandhi was shared on Facebook with the suicide bomber, I was completely shocked. Sharing of old Earthquake images at the time of the attack was completely a bad cover-up. Disinformation not only distorts reality but claims murder as well. It can’t be denied that Politicians and political parties have become brands to be micro-targeted by the social media platforms that have become relatively more important. The propagandizing on the platforms can be easily captured when your eyes get glued on the increasing political ad revenue from 0.5 million in 2014 to 25 million in 2019. More than 70 % of ad revenues of Facebook came from either BJP or Pro BJP pages between February and March, aren’t the numbers shocking?The book also specifies the money spent on political advertisements on the Facebook pages, let’s have a look:
- My First Vote for Modi- 46 Lakh
- YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh- 17.52 Lakh
- Bharat Ke Man Ki Baat- 9.68 Lakh
- The nation with Namo – 17 Lakh
As per Alt news the 2 Facebook pages had spent 1.8 crores on political advertainments. Reading about the figures of 7 crore worth advertisements taken down (11000 political ads) by Chinese company Helo app, blew away my mind. One of the removed ads claimed that “Congress is the world’s 4th most corrupt party of the world” – Now I don’t know how will you guys react after reading it further… One of the Pro BJP pages which spend crores of rupees on political ads shared a photoshopped image of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi sitting in the lap of Maldives President “ Abdul Gayoom”- using photoshop has been a favorite tool of these pro BJP pages when it comes to propagation of falsehood and fake agendas just to polarise and even to torture the other person (opposition) at times. I at times think that where does Facebook lessons of the so-called Community standards go in these cases especially, or it is only for pages like Congress and Anti BJP does Facebook have any answer? , instances like these are plenty in the book, even some of them are not worth sharing but are enough for warmongering and hatred propaganda.
Coming statements from Facebook saying “We are taking down these Pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted” can someone ask from Facebook that what is the behavior online except posting? Yes but Facebook becomes swift when it comes to removing 687 Accounts linked to IT Cell of Indian National Congress ? is my point clear enough? I hope it is now … Thank god now I do not need to explain about more such cases of INC pages and accounts removed. Why is always that the so-called “Spam and Misinterpretations of accounts are banned only of INC or related to them, even if BJP or Pro BJP pages have traces of Fake News in them? – a point to ponder on…. Technology is changing the world and so is Facebook doing of the political scenario, reading the book by Cyril Sam & Paranjoy Guha Thakurta proved to be not only the eye-opener about several cases and instances but at every page, they both were successful to add curiosity to read the book and rummaging pages till the end that too with a thorough reading. It was too much too read and get to learn from the book, also the facts which were hidden till now from the mainstream and even the newspapers. The new era needs to have more Stronger Facebook without any political interference for it to survive, parties may give them more money for the Ads but the spoiler on the company’s Truth, Objectivity & fairness needs to be compromised.
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Shivam Bajaj, You made me speechless. Great work, I also want to recommend these books to some well-wishers. Thanks.
Thank You Very Much Atif !, I am glad you are loving my content. You can always explore more in case you want to read some more. http://www.shivambajaj.in/blogs
Thank You very much and yes, they are truly an eye opener.
Excellent analysis exposing existing reality of prevailing issues related to utilisation of social media with enough inputs regarding its adverse handling for obvious political misinformation as well as disinformation. It is extremely difficult to prevent the wrong usage of several products of technological creations of modern exploration especially in IT segments. The importance of cyber security in all such platforms are absolutely necessary to protect the interest of innocent victims involved in this process. Unless utmost care is exercised to understand the fake groups widely wandered in the virtual world it would be inevitable to become a prey to their perverted hunger. Conscious caution is to be practiced prior to move into any digital related gadgets..Welcoming this awareness note published on public interest.