The Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology has summoned officials of Facebook and Twitter for January 21 to question over misuse of social media/online news platforms.
According to Lok Sabha Secretariat notice, the agenda of the next sittings of the committee will be “Evidence of representatives of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and to hear the views of the representatives of Facebook and Twitter on the subject ‘Safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space.”
The panel earlier summoned Facebook’s India head Ajit Mohan over the issue of political bias on the social media platform.
According to reports, the sitting will be held from 4 pm onwards on January 21.
The 31-member parliamentary standing committee on IT is headed by Shashi Tharoor, Lok Sabha MP from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram constituency.
The allegations of a Facebook bias towards the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were reported in The Wall Street Journal in August 2020.
It was alleged that Ankhi Das, the platform’s then India Policy Head had opposed the idea of removing hate posts by BJP leaders, warning that this could hamper their “commercial interests”.
However, Ankit Das quit Facebook and is no longer associated with the social media platform.