On 26 Sep, The Washington Post published a damning indictment on how the Facebook parent company Meta ‘did not stop hate speech or calls for action ahead of the Delhi violence in 2020, including a bloody religious riot that was incited by Hindu nationalist leaders and left more than 50 people, mostly Muslims, dead.’ It said, like Nigeria, Brazil, and Turkey, India is at the forefront of a worrying trend where 'the Modi administration is setting an example for how authoritarian governments can dictate to American social media platforms what content they must preserve and what they must remove, regardless of the companies’ rules.' On 12 Oct, India’s Opposition alliance – the INDIA bloc – wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai and asked in light of the upcoming national elections in 2024, ‘It is our earnest and urgent plea to you to consider your operations in India remain neutral and are not used wittingly or unwittingly to cause social unrest or distort India's much cherished democratic ideals.' The letter carried fourteen names from most of the parties in the INDIA alliance, it is of concern that AAP did not sign the letter. In the past few months in Panjab, AAP has taken down many contrarian social media accounts. The government itself indulges in huge advertisement spend over social media, that too in other states. Such a letter does not suit the party. This displays AAP’s lack of support for freedom of speech.
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