Harassed for political post, FB user to move CERT-In

A Delhi-based Facebook user, visited by a company representative to verify if he is the one who had written a post with political content, on Wednesday said he would take Facebook to the cyber crime cell at the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).

Disappointed at the Facebook's response, he told IANS no satisfactory action on part of the social media giant had left him with no alternative but to drag Facebook to the law enforcement agencies dealing with cyber crimes.

"Since there has been no action from Facebook to look into the harassment I went through when a company representative did physical verification at my home for posting a political content -- and not for a political ad as the company has been emphasising -- I am left with no choice but to take the legal course," he told IANS.

The CERT-In is part of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the government's nodal agency to deal with cyber crimes and cyber security threats.

The social media user got the shock of his life when a Facebook representative knocked at his door to verify if he is the one who wrote a post with political content and asked for his Aadhaar card to verify his credentials.

Facebook has denied any such measure in place in India as the world's largest democracy goes to polls. This kind of behaviour has not been seen or reported earlier even at the global level as several countries have faced elections with Facebook trying to curb misinformation.

Physical verification of a user is gross violation and unwarranted under the ambit of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

According to Pavan Duggal, country's top cyber law expert and a senior Supreme Court advocate, the user can sue Facebook and even the government for allowing such activities under its nose that infringes on the privacy of a user.

--IANS

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