Facebook restores farmers’ page but silent on why it was taken down

A facebook page of agitating farmers was taken down on Sunday by the platform but was restored following public outrage on social media. Till late on Sunday Facebook had not issued any statement to explain why the page was taken down and how it violated its community standards.

The farmers’ agitation, which enterted the 26th day on Monday, has been growing in strength and has embarrassed the Indian Government and the BJP. Farmers, who are protesting against farm laws, believe that the laws have been brought in to favour crony capitalists and corporate bodies, particularly Adani and Reliance Groups. The suspicion that the move by facebook was prompted by the Government or Reliance, in which facebook this year invested Rs 43,000 Crore and tied up with its Jio platform, sparked outrage.

Facebook has allowed rabid and communal pages to continue and is on record saying that it dare not take them down because of security concerns for its employees in India.

The Internet Freedom Foundation in a statement on Sunday said, “The action taken by Facebook to close the Kisan Ekta Morcha requires a close look at its content moderation practices and policies. India has close to 300 million Facebook users. Its largest market. Even then there is little transparency or accountability.”

“As an immediate task and at the very least Facebook is expected to issue a detailed statement on how and why was the page of Kisan Ekta Manch unpublished. Second, it needs to provide a public commitment for a transparent human rights review as provided in the United States. These asks go beyond restoring the pages and providing a fair chance of appeal provided to the Kisan Ekta Morcha which we hope is provided as the immediate, first step.”

Others were quick to point out the facebook-Jio link. “Farmers should thank Facebook for taking down their page. Going to be a global news story within the hour. Especially the fact Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Jio earlier this year, the same telecom company farmers are boycotting in the tens of thousands,” read one comment on Twitter while another post read, “Facebook is investing Rs 43,574 crore in Jio Platforms for a 9.99% stake in an all-cash deal that will help the oil-to-retail conglomerate reduce debt and strengthen the social media company's presence in WhatsApp.”

WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is known to be used extensively by the BJP and its IT Cell.

Trolls had a field day and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was promptly christened ‘Suckerberg’. Zuckerberg, who had hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the facebook headquarters, had recently engaged in an online conversation with Reliance chief Mukesh Ambani on the post-pandemic economy in the world and the role the two companies are playing.