Facebook's vice-president Joel Kaplan to face Parl panel; - India News Times

March 3, 2019

NEW DELHI: Facebook's vice-president for global public policy Joel Kaplan will attend a meeting of an Indian parliamentary committee on information technology (IT) on March 6 to discuss the social media giant's efforts to safeguard citizen rights and prevent misuse of the platform to influence opinion making by vested interests on the lines of what reportedly happened in the 2016 presidential election in the US. The panel's invitation to Facebook, Twitter and others to discuss the concerns comes on the eve of the forthcoming parliamentary polls in the country.

Ajit Mohan, vice-president, Facebook India, and Ankhi Das, director of public policy and programmes will also attend the meeting on how to check misinformation and fake news on poll-eve, according to reports.

Colin Crowell, vice-president Twitter, had deposed before the panel on February 25 and assured of remedial measures against misuse of its platform political motives.

Facebook has 300 million users, WhatsApp 200 million and Instagram has 75 million users in India. Facebook had recently introduced new tools for transparency in political advertisemnts with "Published by" or "Paid for by" labels.