BENGALURU: At a time when the Indian government is considering social media regulation amidst growing unease with tech giants, Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan on Friday said that the country should work out a global framework for companies. According to Mohan, it would be helpful if India, the world’s second largest internet market, takes the leadership role in enabling formulation of standard regulations that tackle data privacy concerns.
He, while speaking at the Nasscom Technology Leadership Forum 2021, also stressed that the central governments should involve the participation of all the tech firms in the regulatory bodies. Facebook-owned messaging service Whatsapp is currently facing several lawsuits in India after it announced its updates to the privacy policy which will enable the company to access chats with the businesses, inviting ire from India’s information technology ministry.
Whatsapp said on Friday that it has responded to emailed queries of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and that it stands by its new policy which will be implemented nationwide from May 15. The Indian government has questioned Facebook over double standards when Europe was excluded from the implementation of new policy.
In Australia, Facebook’s problems have worsened after the government asked Mark Zuckerbeg’s company to pay news publishers, whose content is shared on the platform after the introduction of new regulations. Similarly, rival Twitter had also been caught up in a row with the Indian government after the firm was asked to block hundreds of accounts, remove content which threatened the sovereignty and security of the country amid a strong face-off with farmers.