india

Updated: Jun 26, 2019 00:13 IST

Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien of Trinamool Congress on Tuesday alleged that Facebook had helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent general election by blocking out anti-BJP content.

“Facebook’s senior management in India are de facto campaign managers for the BJP,” O’Brien alleged on the floor of the house. Holding up the book “The real face of Facebook in India”, the MP said: “You won’t read about this in the newspaper because this tells a sordid story”

Trinamool Congress leader O’Brien said Facebook’s Delhi office was a “virtually an extended BJP information technology cell”.

“Facebook censored anti-BJP news and put other parties with jeopardy and I say this with all responsibility. The Facebook algorithm censores anti-BJP content.”

He seemed to also allege that the messaging platform Whatsapp, owned by Facebook, too was misused.

Remember in September 2018 what was said. ‘We are capable of delivering any message we want to the public…whether sweet or sour, true or fake, we can do this only because we have 35 Whatsapp groups…the man who said this is now the home minister of India,” O’Brien said.

Speaking during the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha, O’Brien demanded sweeping electoral reforms, saying there should be a collegium to appoint the election commissioner. He sought reintroduction of paper ballot. He called for state funding for the political parties to provide level playing field to all contestants during elections.

Facebook did not respond till the time of going to print.