Facebook India policy head quits after row over content

Facebook’s South Asia public coverage director Ankhi Das resigned from her publish on Tuesday, the social media firm mentioned, weeks after the manager emerged on the centre of an argument for purportedly appearing in a politically partisan method to help BJP. Das, who additionally headed Facebook’s public coverage workforce in India, was accused by firm insiders of getting intervened to dam motion towards a Telangana BJP chief for his Islamophobic feedback. Her resignation on Tuesday didn’t seem like linked to the controversy, wherein Facebook has denied any wrongdoing. “I have decided to step down from Facebook after long service to its mission of connecting people and building communities to pursue my personal interest in public service,” Das mentioned in a Facebook publish.

Facebook India acknowledged Das’s resignation and mentioned she performed an instrumental function within the development of the corporate. “Ankhi has decided to step down from her role in Facebook to pursue her interest in public service. Ankhi was one of our earliest employees in India and played an instrumental role in the growth of the company and its services over the last 9 years. She has been a part of my leadership team over the last 2 years, a role in which she has made enormous contributions. We are grateful for her service and wish her the very best for the future,” mentioned Ajit Mohan, Facebook India’s vp and managing director.

Ankhi can be changed by Shivnath Thukral who was the managing director of Carnegie India. He additionally oversees operations, together with coordination with Carnegie’s international community and fundraising. The controversy surrounding Das and Facebook started following an August 14 report within the Wall Street Journal. Das, the report mentioned, intervened to cease Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh from being banned from the social media website over attainable fallout for the corporate’s enterprise pursuits in India. Another report on August 30, WSJ mentioned Das had beforehand disclosed her working with PM Modi and had claimed to have “lit a fire to his social media campaign” earlier than he swept to energy in 2014. Weeks after these experiences, Singh was banned completely from Facebook.

The Congress in addition to the BJP have accused one another of getting a nexus with Facebook. While the Congress seized on the Das controversy to assert that the BJP was forcing firms to permit hate speech to exist, the BJP cited content material takedowns to allege a liberal bias that was behind silencing of right-wing voices. Last week Das appeared earlier than a parliamentary panel over one other matter – considerations over information privateness.