While a large number of people are using the internet for good, there are also some who use it for purposes that are not right, whether it is hate speech of a certain kind or spreading content that shouldn’t be easily accessible, said Ajit Mohan, VP and Managing Director, Facebook India. He was in conversation with Senior Journalist Kaveree Bamzai on the final day of TNIE’s ThinkEdu Conclave 2021.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that we are investing in people and technology to create a safe and secure environment,” Mohan added. He spoke about the internet revolution that India has witnessed over the last few years and how that has enabled ‘explosive opportunities’. “A very large part of the country came alive in terms of accessing the internet in a very short amount of time. We had close to 600 million people who came online with access to affordable internet on mobiles. This kind of transformation, in both the scale and the pace, hasn’t happened anywhere else, not even in China.
Citing the example of WhiteHat Jr, which recently got acquired by BYJU’s, Mohan highlighted the role Facebook plays in online education. “WhiteHat Jr went from zero to a company that was valued at $300 million and a lot of their market expansion was on Facebook and Instagram. They started targetting the US, almost at the same time they expanded in India. That gives you an idea about the potential in sectors like education. This is a model where you can connect the great teachers that India has to global demand from students,” Mohan said.