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NEW DELHI: Facebook announced on Thursday that it has banned BJP politician T Raja Singh, whose alleged posts put him recently at the centre of a Wall Street Journal report and consequently a political maelstrom, from its platform for violating its policies against hate speech.
“We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our policy prohibiting those that promote or engage in violence and hate from having a presence on our platform. The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove his account,” the company said in an email statement. Singh has been categorised as a “dangerous individual” and will not be allowed on Facebook or Instagram going forward.
Hours later, Singh claimed he did not have an FB account since April 2019. He also said he would write to Facebook to open a new account for him and promised to follow the rules. Speaking to TOI, the 42-year-old Telangana MLA said the pages banned by the social networking site might have been created by his followers. “My official account was hacked in 2019 after the assembly elections and I had lodged a complaint with Cyberabad police. I had even sent a request to Facebook to revive my account,” he said.
Singh came into wider focus after the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported in August that his account was not suspended despite being flagged as “dangerous” internally for allegedly spreading hate against a minority community. Facebook India top executives, including public policy head Ankhi Das, had allegedly opposed his ban, saying it would impact the company’s “business interests” in India, which is the social media company’s biggest market in terms of number of users.
On Thursday, the WSJ reported that at least five Facebook pages dedicated to Singh were suspended from the platform and showed the message “This Content Isn’t Available Right Now” when users tried opening them. Together, these pages had over 3,00,000 followers. “Facebook groups devoted to him had also disappeared. His Instagram profile displayed a message saying: Sorry, this page isn’t available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed,” the WSJ article stated.
Singh wondered if Facebook was working under Congress pressure. He said, “Since April 2019, I am not on Facebook, so the question of banning me doesn’t arise. This is all happening because of Rahul Gandhi’s tweet some time ago.”
The controversial legislator alleged Rahul Gandhi made false statements against BJP and PM (Narendra) Modi using these social media platforms. “I am being made a scapegoat by Congress,” he added. “I am writing to Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Facebook also,” he told TOI.
Earlier, Singh had disputed that he or his team ran the Facebook page which shared inflammatory posts, stating that his account had been “hacked and blocked” in 2018. But, in a tweet dated April 1, 2019, he had tweeted that Facebook had unpublished his account.
Singh has allegedly made several controversial statements in the past like “Rohingya should be shot if they indulge in anti-national activities”. On November 6, 2017, the MLA had threatened to set ablaze theatres that screen ‘Padmavat’ movie in Telangana for denigrating the Rajput community in the film. Earlier, he had also said women in filmmakers’ families “change husbands every day”. He later apologised for his remarks.
The parliamentary standing committee had held a hearing on “prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms” on Wednesday and questioned Facebook India head Ajit Mohan for over two hours. On Tuesday, Prasad had written to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg accusing the social media platform of being dominated by people from a political predisposition. On Monday, TMC politician Derek O’Brien had written a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that several pro-TMC pages had been taken down from the platform ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections.
Previously, Facebook has banned several extremist figures, including far-right American Radio host Alex Jones, political activist Laura Loomer, who worked for a Canadian far-right website and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for violating its hate speech policies.
“We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our policy prohibiting those that promote or engage in violence and hate from having a presence on our platform. The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove his account,” the company said in an email statement. Singh has been categorised as a “dangerous individual” and will not be allowed on Facebook or Instagram going forward.
Hours later, Singh claimed he did not have an FB account since April 2019. He also said he would write to Facebook to open a new account for him and promised to follow the rules. Speaking to TOI, the 42-year-old Telangana MLA said the pages banned by the social networking site might have been created by his followers. “My official account was hacked in 2019 after the assembly elections and I had lodged a complaint with Cyberabad police. I had even sent a request to Facebook to revive my account,” he said.
Singh came into wider focus after the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported in August that his account was not suspended despite being flagged as “dangerous” internally for allegedly spreading hate against a minority community. Facebook India top executives, including public policy head Ankhi Das, had allegedly opposed his ban, saying it would impact the company’s “business interests” in India, which is the social media company’s biggest market in terms of number of users.
On Thursday, the WSJ reported that at least five Facebook pages dedicated to Singh were suspended from the platform and showed the message “This Content Isn’t Available Right Now” when users tried opening them. Together, these pages had over 3,00,000 followers. “Facebook groups devoted to him had also disappeared. His Instagram profile displayed a message saying: Sorry, this page isn’t available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed,” the WSJ article stated.
Singh wondered if Facebook was working under Congress pressure. He said, “Since April 2019, I am not on Facebook, so the question of banning me doesn’t arise. This is all happening because of Rahul Gandhi’s tweet some time ago.”
The controversial legislator alleged Rahul Gandhi made false statements against BJP and PM (Narendra) Modi using these social media platforms. “I am being made a scapegoat by Congress,” he added. “I am writing to Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Facebook also,” he told TOI.
Earlier, Singh had disputed that he or his team ran the Facebook page which shared inflammatory posts, stating that his account had been “hacked and blocked” in 2018. But, in a tweet dated April 1, 2019, he had tweeted that Facebook had unpublished his account.
Singh has allegedly made several controversial statements in the past like “Rohingya should be shot if they indulge in anti-national activities”. On November 6, 2017, the MLA had threatened to set ablaze theatres that screen ‘Padmavat’ movie in Telangana for denigrating the Rajput community in the film. Earlier, he had also said women in filmmakers’ families “change husbands every day”. He later apologised for his remarks.
The parliamentary standing committee had held a hearing on “prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms” on Wednesday and questioned Facebook India head Ajit Mohan for over two hours. On Tuesday, Prasad had written to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg accusing the social media platform of being dominated by people from a political predisposition. On Monday, TMC politician Derek O’Brien had written a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that several pro-TMC pages had been taken down from the platform ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections.
Previously, Facebook has banned several extremist figures, including far-right American Radio host Alex Jones, political activist Laura Loomer, who worked for a Canadian far-right website and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for violating its hate speech policies.
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