Facebook has now taken a call to ban BJP MLA T Raja Singh from the platform. Following the hate speech row that took place in connection to Facebook's stand on BJP, the decision to ban BJP MLA was communicated.
Facebook has been facing a lot of flak following a report in the Wall Street Journal claiming that the platform was not taking a hard stance on BJP's hate speech.
Facebook bans T Raja Singh
BJP MLA T Raja Singh became the centre of a controversy on hate speech when he was named as one of the people Facebook has not taken a stand against when it comes to hate speech. This sparked a huge debate between BJP and Congress.
As Facebook appeared before a Parliamentary panel on Wednesday they faced Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on issues of bias. Now, the platform's spokesperson announced a ban on BJP MLA T Raja Singh for violating the platform's policy on hate and violence.
In an emailed statement as per a PTI report, the spokesperson said, "We have banned Raja Singh from Facebook for violating our policy prohibiting those that promote or engage in violence and hate from having a presence on our platform."
T Raja Singh an MLA from Goshamahal, Telangana has been flagged for engaging in hate speech and anti-muslim dialogue. Taking to Twitter T Raja Singh said that the news of the ban is quite redundant when his account has been inactive since April 2019.
The politician said, "I'd like to clarify that I've not been using FB since April 2019. So, banning me makes no sense."
He had reshared his tweet announcing this in 2019, "My official Facebook page has been unpublished/removed a couple of days back @facebook may I know the reason."
This debate between what is free speech and what constitutes 'hate speech' continues.
