Facebook has not removed pages and profiles of Indian Hindu priest Yati Narsinghanand who incited people to violence and posted hateful messages against Muslims. A judge who rejected his bail plea said he is “repeatedly making comments to incite communal passions and spoiling religious harmony through social media and there is a strong possibility of serious crimes being committed in the area”. 

Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, former chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission, accused Facebook and other social networking sites of double standards when it comes to their policies. He detailed how they follow a different set of rules within their nation and another "for the rest of the world."

In July 2020, the Commission issued a report detailing how hate speech on social media, particularly Facebook, fueled religious violence in North East Delhi that year.

Teesta Setalvad, secretary of human rights organization Citizens for Justice and Peace, said the report suggests racism and treating the lives of Indian minorities with less or no value.

The organization tracks hate speech online and have complained to Facebook on numerous occasions. 

Setalvad and her colleagues had been highlighting hate remarks made by T. Raja Singh, a governing party official, since 2019. Facebook declared him "dangerous" in 2020 and banned him after he threatened to demolish mosques and suggested Rohingya immigrants be slaughtered.

In the US, Alex Jones and other white supremacist groups have been permanently banned from the platform. But activists believe the politician’s case seems to be a one-off.

Real violence

The number of religious riots in India more than quadrupled in 2020, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In 2020, 857 incidents of communal or religious rioting were reported, up from 438 in 2019. 

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Speaking at the Real Facebook Oversight Board event, a group of Facebook critics including lawyers, activists, and journalists, Dr. Khan said “Social media platforms, particularly Facebook, share a lot of responsibility in making hate normal, popular and accessible everywhere in the country. I fear an attempt to unleash genocide may take place anytime before the general elections in 2022."

In 2020, Facebook commissioned the law firm Foley Hoag to conduct a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) evaluating the role in spreading hate speech in India. The findings have not yet been released.

On 3 January, over 20 organizations pleaded with Miranda Sissions, the director of the human rights at Facebook, to release the HRIA and address serious concerns about the company’s human rights record in India.

Brian Boland, a former Facebook executive said “The power of Facebook is Mark [Zuckerberg]." He added that “Mark’s hands are on everything, Mark’s decisions lead everything. For there to be changes around any of this it needs to come from Mark. This is the kind of report that, at some point, will be elevated to him.” 

Not limited to India

Anti-Muslim rhetoric on Facebook is not limited to India.

The  Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (Aman) lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission in April 2021 contesting pages statings they are “anti-Islam” with hateful posts surrounding Middle Easterners, Africans, and Asians.

According to former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, the trends are similar across nations because hostile material generates higher user participation which means more profit.

India holds nearly 300 million Facebook users in India, nearly the entire population of the US. The nation has 487 million WhatsApp users and around 201 million Instagram users, making it Meta's most crucial market. 

In September 2021 Facebook said they had spent $13 billion on keeping their users safe in the previous five years. “Over the same five years…. they spent 50 billion on stock buyback,” Brian Boland said.   

Stonewall and delay

Haugen said that Facebook should be pushed to mandatory transparency. "They stonewall, they delay," she said.

Facebook is not required to post the number of hate speech posts or the safety systems in place for each language. 

Setalvad said Facebook lacks the understanding in "the difference between hate speech and free speech", adding that this requires an honest understanding of "India’s diversity and India’s track record of vicious communal violence."

“Even if the awaited report is released by Facebook, nothing much, beyond some cosmetic steps, will take place in India,” said Dr. Khan. “[The amount of money] Facebook makes in India and other Third World countries is more important [for Facebook] than ethics and morality.”