To the
International Commission of Jurists,

It has recently been exposed by a Wall Street Journal article (link:  https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-muslim-hindu-modi-zuckerberg-11597423346) that Facebook in India has been helping BJP in it's election campaigns by not taking action against the hate speeches propagated by the BJP IT cell, party members and supporters as well as by systematically taking down posts that criticize BJP or any of its policies. After thorough investigation into the matter, it has been revealed that BJP has been doing this since our national elections in 2014. Facebook therefore has been instrumental in manipulating the voters in both 2014 and 2019 elections. This has been made possible by Facebook India's policymakers led by policy director Ankhi Das, who is notably the sister of a BJP students' wing leader, and Mr Shivnath Thukral, an executive in facebook. Their actions gained unsaid encouragement from FB India's VP Mr Ajit Mohan and Mark Zuckerberg's silence on the issue. Before the 2019 election, deleted pro-BJP pages were restored and opposition pages were forcefully deleted. All this has put our democracy under threat and it is imperative that we take immediate action to fix things, so that people can no longer be manipulated before any election (we have upcoming state-level elections) and in general. And since facebook owns Instagram and Whatsapp, the latter has turned into a hotbed of trolls, abusers and fake news peddlers. Fake news implicating certain communities are mass forwarded on whatsapp groups. The planning of an entire pogrom against Muslims was carried out through a whatsapp group with impunity. so that people can no longer be manipulated before any election (we have upcoming state-level elections) and in general. And since facebook owns Instagram and Whatsapp, the latter has turned into a hotbed of trolls, abusers and fake news peddlers. Fake news implicating certain communities are mass forwarded on whatsapp groups. The planning of an entire pogrom against Muslims was carried out through a whatsapp group with impunity. so that people can no longer be manipulated before any election (we have upcoming state-level elections) and in general. And since facebook owns Instagram and Whatsapp, the latter has turned into a hotbed of trolls, abusers and fake news peddlers. Fake news implicating certain communities are mass forwarded on whatsapp groups. The planning of an entire pogrom against Muslims was carried out through a whatsapp group with impunity.
As of now, no action has been taken against Facebook India's policy team. Even after this massive expose, they continue to insidiously pursue the same propaganda in favor of BJP. Hence we demand the following:

1. Legal action against Mark Zuckerberg for consciously aiding in destroying the secular fabric and democratic cire of India.
2. Removal of Ankhi Das, Shivnath Thukral and anyone who have specific agendas of favoring any political party.
3. Appointment of neutral people in the policy team. The crew should also be diverse to cover as many sections of Indian citizens as possible.
4. Taking of action against any perpetrator of hate speech as well as pages.
5. Doing a fact check on the news being propagated through social media handles of IT cells of any political party, in any language. This fact checking should be applicable for Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. There are fact checking websites like altnews.in that already do this and facebook is already doing it in the US. This will stop the false propaganda.

We would request you to look into this matter with due diligence as a lot of harm has already been done through facebook posts, whatsapp forwards etc., like slut shaming women, denigrating a particular community, even to the extent of inciting communal riots. This needs to be stopped and reparations need to be made. Below are some other articles on this matter. Above all we hold Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook as responsible for these hateful actions.
Below are some more links on the topic:

1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-indias-modi-disparaged-opposition-in-internal-messages-11598809348

2. http://www.jantakareporter.com/entertainment/after-ankhi-das -another-facebook-executive-shivnath-thukrals-dirty-nexus-with-bjp-exposed-times-revelation-should-worry-400-million-whatsapp-users-in-india / 303238 /

3. https://thewire.in / media / backstory-how-facebook-and-bjp-ring-fenced-india

4. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/facebook-bjp-india-ankhi-das_in_5f4dcdcbc5b697186e3a5e0b

5. https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/09/01/bjp-asked-facebook-to-monetise-opindia-remove-bhim-army-page-indian-express

6. https://thewire.in/tech/bjp-facebook-india-deleted-pages-amit malviya

From,
Concerned Indian Citizens