[The motorcycle used in 2008 Malegaon blast. (File photo)]
New Delhi: New Emerging World of Journalism Limited (NEWJ) - a subsidiary of Reliance Jio Platforms Ltd, had shared a post on Facebook proclaiming that Pragya Singh Thakur has been acquitted of all charges in 2008 Malegaon terrorist attack case, a media report said.
NEWJ shared the post on Facebook soon after Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) confirmed her as its candidate from Madhya Pradesh Capital Bhopal for the 2019 Lok Sabha Polls, Qatar based Al Jazeera said in a report detailing how surrogate advertisements ran on Facebook to influence the opinion of voters in favour of the BJP ahead of the elections.
“As soon as the BJP picked Pragya Singh Thakur as its candidate for a seat in the lower house of Parliament, Facebook showed an advertisement that mimicked the style of a news report but carried a false claim in the headline”, Al Jazeera said in its report.
“The advertisement wrongly proclaimed that Thakur had been “acquitted” of the charge of making available her motorcycle to plant explosives that killed six people in the Muslim-majority Malegaon town in the western state of Maharashtra”, the report said adding that the post got 300,000 views in a day.
The motorcycle registered in the name of Pragya Singh Thakur, as per the investigating agencies, was parked at Bhikku Chowk in Malegaon – barely 50 meters from Anjuman Chowk where a large number of women along with their children were busy in Eid shopping when the bombs exploded after Traweeh Prayers in the last week of Ramadan on September 28, 2008.
A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Maharashtra had later framed charges under the provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) against Pragya Thakur, Lt Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit, a serving Indian Army officer, and others.
Though Pragya Singh Thakur - released on bail on health ground after spending about nine years in jail, won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she is still defending the charges of terrorism framed against her by the NIA.
Surrogate advertisements promote a political candidate but are not directly funded or authorised by that candidate.
Al Jazeera in its report said loopholes in how the Election Commission of India (ECI) applies the law and a selective application of Facebook’s rules and processes allowed India’s largest conglomerate to pump in millions of rupees to place and promote these surrogate advertisements to boost the reach and popularity of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP in the lead up to the 2019 parliamentary elections and nine state elections.
This is not the first time reports claiming Facebook’s dubious rule in promoting PM Modi and BJP has surfaced in the mainstream. In a complaint on how Facebook “promotes global division and ethnic violence” filed in October last with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyers for Haugen cited internal company documents to claim that “political sensitivities” prevented the popular social media company from categorising or providing a designation to RSS – the ideological mentor of BJP.
“RSS [Indian nationalist organisation with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] Users, Groups, and Pages promote fear-mongering, anti-Muslim narratives targeted pro-Hindu populations with V&I [violence and inciting] intent…. There were a number of dehumanizing posts comparing Muslims to ‘pigs’ and ‘dogs’ and misinformation claiming Quran calls for men to rape their female family members..”, Haugen, a data scientist who worked at Facebook until May 2021, said in her complaint-document submitted to SEC said.
A year before Haugen’s complaint to SEC, Ankhi Das, then Facebook India Head, relinquished her post following a Wall Street Journal report on August 14, 2020 claiming that the top leadership at Facebook's India office refused to apply the company's own rules to politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), despite clear violations of Facebook's policies against incitement to violence, hate speech and misinformation.
For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App.
Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
