Parliamentary Panel Summons Facebook Officials Over Citizen’s Rights

Facebook India officials have been asked to appear before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) on November 29 to discuss the subject of protection of citizen’s rights with a special emphasis on women’s safety in digital social/ online news media platforms.

“To hear the views of representatives Of Facebook India on the subject safeguarding citizens rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space,” the committee agenda read.

The committee will also hear from officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology regarding the protection of the rights of citizens and prevent misuse of social/online news media platforms with special emphasis on women’s safety in the digital space.

The committee will also be discussing submissions made by Facebook whistleblower Sophie  Zhang who submitted several allegations against social media giant Facebook and its politically sophisticated attempt to influence Delhi 2020 assembly elections.

Congress senior leader Shashi Tharoor is the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee for Information and technology.

Last week, an Indian parliamentary panel recommended treating social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook as publishers and setting up a regulatory body to oversee them, potentially opening the companies up to more liability for user-generated content, according to a Bloomberg report.

The high-level committee made those recommendations as it reportedly reviewed the personal data protection bill introduced in 2019 that seeks to protect users’ privacy and enforce strict controls on how companies such as Alphabet’s Google and Amazon collect, process, and store data.