India: an agreement between Meta and the BJP to censor content on social networks?

According to The Wire, an agreement has been reached with the Meta group which would allow the authorities to censor publications on social networks without having to justify themselves.

AP - Tony Avelar

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In India, has the ruling BJP party taken over Instagram?

According to the investigative newspaper

, an agreement has been reached with the Meta group which would allow the authorities to censor publications on social networks without having to justify themselves.

The Meta group rejects these accusations as a whole, but the controversy swells.

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With our correspondent in Bangalore

, 

This further reinforces suspicions of collusion between the Indian government and social media platforms.

's investigation

, published on Monday, October 12, started with a satirical post about a BJP figure, deleted by Instagram for violating nudity rules.

However, the publication in question did not contain any scenes of nudity.

According to

, it was actually erased at the request of Amit Malviya, chairman of the BJP's digital cell.

A privilege of censorship of content which would have been granted in secret and which contravenes the neutrality displayed by the platform.

And that could affect many other messages and users.

Review by automated systems

Quickly, Meta reacts through the voice of its security director, assuring that its posts are reviewed by automated systems, and never by humans.

The social networking giant considers that the investigation, which is also based on

exchanges , is based on entirely fabricated evidence.

I wanted to set the record straight about two stories run this week by @thewire_in with untrue claims about Meta's content moderation operations and processes.

tl;dr these stories are fabrications.

(1/6)

— Guy Rosen (@guyro) October 11, 2022

The case has since divided the Indian press and experts. 

claims to have several reliable sources.

Others consider that the newspaper could have been trapped by third parties to damage its reputation.

The BJP remains silent for the moment in the face of this potential scandal.

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