Daily Times

The Narendra Modi – Mark Zuckerberg symbiosis started in September 2015 when Modi was hosted at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. Before they met, Zuckerberg changed his profile picture to “Digital India” with his face merged in the Indian flag. Modi reciprocated the same.

At a subsequent town-hall meeting, a tearful Modi talked about his mother and humble beginnings. In a choked voice, Modi said: “I came from a very poor family. We went to our neighbors’ houses to clean dishes and do hard chores; you can imagine what a mother had to do to raise her children”.

Such experiences mould an individual to empathy and humility. Accusing Modiji of these traits would be a sacrilege indeed. Occupied Kashmir, the largest internment camp on this planet, is a brutal testimony to the reality of Modi.

Modi chose to wear a pinstripe Jodhpuri suit on an Obama visit to India. So far so good, but not so, the stripes were actually a printed repetition of the words – Narendra Damodardas Modi. A beguiled Obama remarked that he too wanted to wear a “Modi kurta”. As a salute to Modi’s narcissism, LaljibhaiTulsibai Patel, doled out 43 million rupees to buy the suit at an auction setting a Guinness World Record for the most expensive suit.

The humble beginning Modi story, true that it may be, has morphed into a painfully crafted illusion where Modi the tyrant of Kashmir disappears and Modi the serene appears with his peacocks and yoga; where Modi the butcher of Gujarat disappears and Modi the tea-seller emerges.

The myth sees the transformation of that boy, from a poor family, donning the ‘forced’ mantle to deliver India from the deshdrohis (traitors) and cleansing it of all non-Hindus for an akhandbaharat. Unfortunately, Modi’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde charade has been accepted by Indians everywhere; temples have come up in his name, his statues revered as god. Despite India’s hate speech and divisive record, Facebook chose to invest 5.7 billion dollars in MukeshAmbani’s telecommunication company Reliance Jio. This deal has created the world’s largest digital services firms. Keeping the Modi / Ambani nexus (Rafale deal etc) in mind, it might well be a hate speech / fake news juggernaut poisoning millions of minds.

Facebook has been accused of affecting the 2019 Indian elections in Modi’s favor. Zuckerberg was investigated for illegally selling private data of more than 87 million Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica, a firm hired by the Trump campaign during the 2016 US presidential election.

Facebook has also been accused of, apart from many other transgressions, spreading fake news in Malaysia, Brazil, Philippine and influencing the Brexit referendum. Facebook’s WhatsApp has been accused of enabling gory mob violence in Sri Lanka, India and Myanmar.

The horrific human rights abuse against Rohingya Muslims was precipitated by WhatsApp fake news. Facebook’s typical response at broad-siding such allegation was to commission a report. When it came, the report was more of an indictment of Burmese society accusing it of “digital illiteracy, non-existing community standards and lack of education”.

Another tragic example saw a public service video against child kidnapping edited to make it appear like a real act. The clip went viral with unsubstantiated claims of roaming child traffickers. The resulting frenzy saw vigilante mobs lynching or beating to death more than 20 innocent people, including Nilotpal Das, a 29-year-old sound engineer and AbhijeetNath, a 30-year-old businessman, dozens were injured. Indian authorities declared “all the victims were innocent, the killings were being inspired by text messages and videos shared on WhatsApp”.

The Modi – Zuckerburg alliance has also seen a joint effort to undermine Chinese interests, Modi for political purposes the latter for pure economic gains. In June this year, citing national security concerns, Modi’s government banned 60 Chinese mobile apps including TikTok, with over 119 million Indian users and 190.6 million downloads. The other banned Chinese apps included WeChat, UC Browser, Shareit and Baidu Map.

Another WSJ report narrates how Zuckerberg lobbied lawmakers. During an October 2019 private White House dinner with President Trump, Jared Kushner and Facebook board member and billionaire tech tycoon Peter Thiel, Zuckerberg convinced President Trump that the ingress of Chinese internet companies posed a grave security and economic threat.

This led to a national security review of Tiktok culminating in President Trump signing an executive order. It gave a deadline telling TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance Ltd to divest its US operations. India and the US, with 160 million collective users, were TikTok’s top two user bases.

Zuckerberg’s continued mantra remains that Facebook operates under the US 1st Amendment guaranteeing freedom of expression. It is for the US government to see if the 1st Amendment is being violated within its own boundaries. In other countries, Facebook, like everybody else, has to follow the laws of the land.

Freedom of expression is not absolute. After a two year audit in Facebook affairs, Laura W Murphy, civil rights auditor, expressed “concern over Zuckerberg’s repeated defense of free expression on Facebook”. She noted, “The prioritization of free expression over all other values, such as equality and non-discrimination, is deeply troubling”.

The dichotomy becomes all the more stark given Facebook’s prompt action at removing posts eulogizing Kashmir’s freedom struggle and sacrifices and those highlighting India’s blatant state sponsored brutalities.

Conversely, no such action is taken against hate comments and fake news against Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, China along with African Americans, immigrants and a host of other countries or communities that are not multi-billion markets. Freedom of speech is the privilege of a few in this virtually biased word.

India irrationally accuses Pakistan for Uri, Pathankot and Pulwama like incidents. Modi, in turn, threatens Pakistan with the “mother of all bombs”. In case of an Indian miscalculation, egged on by Modi’s fake / hate news juggernaut and India’s frenzied anchors and veterans, one can imagine the horrific outcome on both sides of the border.

The only thing that shall rein in these social media hydras is a financial pinch for their repeated transgressions. Unilever announced that “divisiveness and hate speech continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society”. It pulled out all its advertisements from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Facebook has been accused of, spreading fake news in Malaysia, Brazil, Philippine and influencing the Brexit referendum

It took minutes for Facebook to react. Mark Zuckerberg appeared live on his Facebook page with his spiel regarding the “company’s racial justice work”. He also announced a series of ‘new’ policies, including a ban on hateful content. He promised more restrictions on false claim posts; assurances made earlier too but never implemented.

Given that Facebook has been accused of allowing hate speech and fake news to go unchecked on its site for several years, it is now faced with a “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign. This campaign has gained momentum as over 900 major companies have signed on, including Verizon, PepsiCo, Ben & Jerry’s, Best Buy, North Face, REI, Coca-Cola, Ford, Levi’s, Mozilla, Microsoft and Patagonia.

Privacy is a fundamental right of all human beings. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”.

Some social platforms are betraying the trust of their users. Facebook, for one, has seemingly done so willfully by turning a blind eye to hate speech and fake news only to protect and add on to its 528 billion dollar empire. This unholy pursuit is all the more reprehensible given this criminal intransigence is aided and abetted by the likes of Narendra Modi.

Such is the addictive allure of these platforms that its user base continues to spread phenomenally. This and lack of action with the premise of not being accountable for the way their service is used becomes an excuse for continued unwillingness to enforce policies and self-regulate.

Countries and economies like the United States and India are led by people who have been accused of being fractious and propagators of hate-speech. This leaves advocacy groups, corporate entities and affected countries to cooperate and pool their resources to rein in social media that has metastasized into a social menace.

The writer can be reached at miradnanaziz@gmail.com