When Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang said she had evidence exposing how the social media giant had allowed India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to “manipulate” public discourse, she expected democratic institutions in the country to be interested in what she had to say.
But more than a year after she made her findings public and six months since a formal request was raised with the speaker of the lower house of India’s parliament (the Lok Sabha) to let her testify about these claims, Ms Zhang says she has heard back from no one.
She made headlines around the world in September 2020 by revealing how governments and third-party actors use fake accounts, or bots, on Facebook to sway the political mood of the public in different countries, including India.
After she was fired from Facebook in 2020, Ms Zhang published two articles in The Guardian detailing her fallout with the company. Her articles in April 2021 claimed that Facebook is easily exploitable by those hoping to interfere in elections, and accused the company of sitting on its hands unless the actions directly hurt its bottom line.
Her exposé included a huge warning for India, where the fake engagement activities appeared to involve most of the major political parties but where, she says, the ruling BJP was the only party that Facebook was “scared” of acting against.
She says she waited for the Indian system to take its own course of action as a sign of “deep and abiding respect for India’s laws and...
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