Facebook Gets Embroiled In Another Censorship Controversy In India

Facebook Inc FB blocked posts with the hashtag "#ResignModi" on its social media platform and restored them hours later amid mounting concerns of government censoring critical views, Bloomberg reported.

What Happened: According to the report, Facebook claims it blocked the hashtag — that called for the resignation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over handling of the COVID-19 pandemic — by mistake and not because of the government's instructions. A company spokesperson told Bloomberg the error was due to the content associated with the label and not the hashtag itself.

The hashtag was trending for hours in India and came ahead of a crucial, hotly-contested, final phase of elections in a key state.

The Indian government had earlier this week ordered social media sites including Twitter Inc TWTR, Facebook and Instagram to block about 100 social media posts criticizing its handling of the devastating COVID-19 surge in the country that resulted in a nationwide outrage in the world’s largest democracy, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Why It Matters: Facebook moderates social media posts on its platform and periodically blocks hashtags for a number of reasons. Some of these actions are manual while others are done automatically.

Facebook and Twitter have been criticized over allegations of interfering in the U.S. elections and censoring certain posts. The companies use labels to fact-check posts on their platforms that could be related to elections and regulate them accordingly, which it has claimed are fair.

Price Action: Shares of Facebook closed 1.16% higher at $307.10 on Wednesday and were up 6.15% in after-hours trading.

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