India has the largest number of Facebook users in the world, with an estimated pool of more than 400 million users. By 2040, it is estimated that Facebook users in India will be approximately 970 million.
This has major ramifications for Indian democracy as social media platforms, especially Facebook, have become an important medium for political discourse. Therefore, disinformation campaigns on Facebook, especially those that increase divisions between religious communities, and the proliferation of inauthentic accounts or ‘bots’, significantly threaten the political process in India.
Facebook claims that it is doing everything it can to filter out bots and malicious disinformation campaigns. However, some of its former employers are blowing the whistle on these claims.
Sophie Zhang, a data scientist who worked with Facebook for three years, came out with a damning memo in 2020 alleging that Facebook refused to take action against politically influential actors who were violating the platform rules.
Zhang also said that she turned down a $64,000 severance package from Facebook which would have legally mandated her to maintain silence about the information she learnt during her time with the company, so that she could bring these claims to the public domain.
In October, 2021, Zhang testified before a Parliamentary Committee of the British Parliament on Facebook’s failure to act against the abuse of its platform. Across the pond, another former Facebook...
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