NEW DELHI,mar 06:
Facebook Vice-President Joel Kaplan (Global Public Policy) will appear before the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology (IT) on Wednesday to elaborate what it and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram are doing to safeguard the citizen rights across platforms.
Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director of Facebook India, and Ankhi Das, Director (Public, Policy and Programmes) will accompany Kaplan, according to sources.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg are not travelling to India for the hearing, the sources said.
The Facebook officials’ presentation will follow the appearance of Colin Crowell, Global Vice-President (Public Policy) of Twitter, before the Anurag Thakur-led panel on February 25.
Crowell had spoken about how the micro-blogging site would help address issues like political bias and manipulation on its platform.
The panel had on Monday asked micro-blogging site Twitter to address issues in real-time and engage more with the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of general election 2019 and also summoned senior officials of other social media platforms Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to appear before it on March 6.
This was informed by Anurag Thakur, chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, after a nearly three-and-a-half-hour meeting with Global Vice President of Public Policy for Twitter Colin Crowell and other officials of the micro-blogging platform.
Thakur said Twitter officials were asked to “engage more” with the ECI and address issues on a “real-time” basis.
The Twitter officials were told that there should not be any “international interference” in the Lok Sabha polls.
Sources said the social media platform was categorically asked to ensure the forthcoming elections are not undermined and influenced by foreign entities.
