As the news broke of alleged Facebook data breach by UK firm Cambridge Analytica to build profiles of American voters for the 2016 U.S. elections, the social media giant came under fire for its protocols over the weekend. Trying to quell fears of the data of millions of its users being used for elections in other countries, the company CEO Mark Zuckerberg on March 21 said that his organization is committed to upholding the integrity of elections around the world, including India.
“And we have a responsibility to do this, not only for the 2018 midterms in the U.S., which are going to be a huge deal this year and that’s just a huge focus for us but there’s a big election in India this year, there’s a big election in Brazil, there are big elections around the world, and you can bet that we are really committed to doing everything that we need to make sure that the integrity of those elections on Facebook is secured,” he told the CNN news channel in an interview.
This came as a response to a question on actions taken by Facebook to limit the influence of external elements in election processes of various countries. Zuckerberg talked of Artificial Intelligence tools, which were used to identify “Russian bots” who were trying to influence the 2017 France elections as well as the polls for the Alabama senate seat. He said the social media company has made mistakes in handling the private data of users. He also said the company is open to regulation and is happy to testify before the U.S Congress, if need be. He posted the statement on his Facebook page too.
Meanwhile, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are embroiled in controversy that the two parties may have been clients of the Indian affiliate of Cambridge Analytica. Both the parties have claimed otherwise.
India’s Union Minister for Information and Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on March 22 said in a press conference that Congress had been in contact with the firm. “We support press freedom but don’t like misuse of social media in the electoral process. As IT and law minister, I have to make it clear,” he said. Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala denied these claims and leveled counter charges against the ruling party.
Prasad also said that the Indian government is ready to launch an inquiry to see if Facebook has any role in unfairly influencing elections in the country, according to the Economic Times.
The Indian affiliate of Cambridge Analytica — Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI) — whose website was suddenly suspended on March 22 evening, had reportedly named the BJP, Congress and the Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar as clients on its now suspended portal. Ovleno is a joint venture between SCI India and SCL Group, London. SCL Group is the parent firm of Cambridge Analytica.
India is the largest user base for Facebook with 241 million users.