Meta's complex relationship with India's citizens and government is again in the spotlight after allegations it rolled out the red carpet for government censors.
The allegations appeared in Indian outlet The Wire last week, in reporting that asserted that posts reported by Amit Malviya, president of the IT team at India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was given access to the XCheck program that allows high-profile users to circumvent normal content rules.
XCheck is also thought to confer privileges, including removing posts on Meta's social networks.
"The company has given Malviya two levels of privileges – he can post as he likes, without the rules governing the platform applying to him, and he can impose his will as he pleases to have posts critical of the BJP, the Union government, or right-wing Hindu politics, deleted," The Wire reported, along with an allegation that Meta took down 705 Instagram posts reported by Malviya in September alone.
An internal Instagram report accessed by The Wire was cited as evidence of Malviya's privileged status.
Meta comms officer Andy Stone responded to the allegations as follows:
No - so many issues with this. X-check has nothing to do with the ability to report posts. The posts in question were surfaced for review by automated systems, not humans. And the underlying documentation appears to be fabricated.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 11, 2022
The Wire rejected Stone's assertion, and added an allegation that the Meta man...
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