Problematic when Facebook employees on record abuse PM: Union Minister to Zuckerberg

New Delhi, Sep 01: Amid a huge controversy over reports alleging a Facebook executive was biased towards members of the ruling BJP, the government has written to Mark Zuckerberg.

Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that employees of the social media giant "are on record abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet ministers" while still working in Facebook India and managing important positions.

"There was a concerted effort by the Facebook India management to not just delete pages or substantially reduce their reach but also offer no recourse or right of appeal to affected people who are supportive of the right-of-centre ideology", he said.

The minister's allegations have emerged at a time opposition parties, especially the Congress, have seized on US media articles suggesting Facebook's bias while dealing with posts from members of the BJP or the rightwing.

A report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month had brought to fore similar allegations, which were strongly rejected by both Facebook and the BJP.

After the controversy had broken out, the BJP had attacked the Congress over the opposition party''s allegations, saying people whose political base has "shrunk like anything" seek to dominate discourse on these platforms while asserting that everybody regardless of his ideology has got the right to air his views there.

Facebook had earlier said the company''s social media platform prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence, adding these policies are enforced globally without regard to political affiliation.

However, Facebook, which counts India among its largest markets globally, acknowledged that "there is more to do".