Absolutely clear on zero tolerance for hate speech at Facebook: India MD

Mohan said the company is investing a lot on artificial intelligence and automated systems to make sure that it is able to detect content that violates these community standards, even before the users

Weeks after a controversy broke out around Facebook’s political leanings, the India head of the American social media giant has said in an interview that the company does not profit from hate speech while detailing the in-house checks and balances. The Menlo Park-headquartered firm was accused of ignoring a Bharatiya Janata Party leader’s hate speech on the social media platform following an advisory from the company’s public policy team.      

    

Ajit Mohan, managing director and vice president at Facebook India, told Business Standard that most users including advertisers, stakeholders and the government had been using the platform to do good and to create economic value.

“We are clear (about) speech and hate speech in our community standards. We are absolutely clear that there’s no tolerance for hate speech and that we will objectively enforce these community standards in a neutral and non-partisan manner,” said Mohan.

Mohan said the company was investing in artificial intelligence and automated systems to be able to detect content violating the community standards, even before users could report on them. The firm also has human reviewers. Some  35,000-odd persons are focused only on safety and security, he pointed out .

“In the last quarter of 2017, we took down around 1.7 million pieces of hate speech content around the world. In the second quarter of 2020, that number was north of 22 million,” said Mohan.  “So 90 per cent of all content (related) to hate speech that we removed was picked up by our AI systems before a user report came in.”

On allegations about certain executives at the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm having the power to shield a political party from the hate speech rules in India, Mohan said the systems at Facebook were designed to prevent such a thing.

“We do have people who have done work across the political spectrum. But once they’re inside the company, the only thing that matters is that we are neutral, and non-partisan and enforcing our standards objectively,”  Mohan elaborated. “The content policy team in India sits separate and is independent of the public policy team,” he pointed out in an attempt to clarify on the recent controversy.

Responding to a question on Big Tech’s responsibility on cyber attacks and fake news influencing elections, Mohan said Facebook had an obligation to keep people safe on its platform, apart from following the local law. It’s also relying on fact-checkers which are tackling misinformation in several languages in India. “We use more fact-checkers in India than most other countries around the world.”

In the past, the firm had faced issues such as the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach and the snooping row where Pegasus spyware was used for hacking into Facebook-owned WhatsApp instant messenger.

According to Mohan, Facebook is a very different company today than it was two to three years ago, and there is a lot of emphasis on privacy, which is at the heart of the design of its products or the way it thinks about the policies related to privacy and cybersecurity.

Facebook is also betting big on the India market, while seeking to play a significant role in the country’s digital transformation. 

It recently invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Industries’ Jio Pla­tforms and also backed edtech company Unacademy. Last year, it had invested in social commerce startup Meesho.

“We have the opportunity to fuel innovative models that are coming out of India, (which) invariably could go global,” said Mohan. “The investment (in Jio) is a sign of our commitment to India, and the role that digital will play in transforming India's economy.”

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has partnered with Reliance’s e-commerce venture Jiomart to bring local kirana stores online. Mohan said for a lot of small businesses the digital presence means a WhatsApp number.  There is a tremendous opportunity to reduce friction in the process and make it easier for consumers to order from within WhatsApp, he added. Out of the over 2 billion people using WhatsApp globally, about 400 million are based in India.

“We're still waiting for regulatory approval on payments on WhatsApp. We do believe that, if we get the approval, it can genuinely be a massive po­sitive for the Indian economy.

Mohan also said recovery of small businesses from the pandemic would be critical for the Indian economy, and “we want to do everything we can to help.” As part of its $100 million global grant for small businesses announced early this year, the firm on Tuesday ann­ounced $4.3 million for more than 3,000 small businesses across Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, where Facebook has offices.