David Bridges
Meta has rejected claims its controversial program XCheck helped censor Modi government critics — but reports from India suggest otherwise.
We’ve had a couple more data points over the past week demonstrating the dangers to democracy posed by the seemingly tight interplay between the world’s rising authoritarian leaders, social media and the billionaire oligarchs who seek to control it.
A US-centred global media means the lion’s share of headlines have been about the “did-he/didn’t-he” debate over whether billionaire (and likely soon-to-be Twitter owner) Elon Musk spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin about a Ukraine peace deal — Musk’s insistence on continually tripling-down have encouraged the “yes, yes he did” camp.
But it was news out of India that reminded us of the true power social media gives misinformation, after reports Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seemingly has a hotline to Meta (formerly Facebook), enabling the government to force take-downs of critical posts on the company’s platforms.
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Sophie Langley
Cameron Steel
