Facebook's problems on the subcontinent present an amplified version of the issues it has faced throughout the world, made worse by a lack of resources and a lack of expertise in India's 22 officially recognised languages
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes questions at a town hall event moderated by Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Sept. 27, 2015. Internal documents show a struggle with misinformation, hate speech and celebrations of violence in the country, the company’s biggest market. (Max Whittaker/The New York Times)
On Feb. 4, 2019, a Facebook researcher created a new user account to see what it was like to experience the social media site as a person living in Kerala, India.
For the next three weeks, the account operated by a simple rule: Follow all the recommendations generated by Facebook’s algorithms to join groups, watch videos and explore new pages on the site.
The result was an inundation of hate speech, misinformation and celebrations of violence, which were documented in an internal Facebook report published later that month.
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