BJP MLA at centre of Facebook row claims his official account was hacked, blocked in 2018
T Raja Singh said he only has an official YouTube and an official Twitter account, through which he has never made incendiary remarks.
Bharatiya Janata Party’s Telangana unit MLA T Raja Singh, who is at the centre of a controversy over Facebook’s content policies allegedly favouring the ruling party, on Sunday claimed that his official account was “hacked and blocked” in 2018.
“I have got to know many Facebook pages are using my name,” Singh tweeted. “Let me clarify I’m not having any official page, I am not responsible for any of their post. My official account was hacked and blocked in 2018...” The BJP MLA said he still did not know why his account was hacked.
“I am being projected in such a way that I am the most dangerous in the entire world...he [Singh] says something on social media, then something or the other happens,” Singh said. “I would like to tell the media that I am a person who works in national interest. Cite one example where I could be blamed for any riot or unrest.”
Singh said he only has an official YouTube and an official Twitter account. The BJP MLA claimed he had never made any incendiary remarks through these accounts. Singh said that there are many in the country who make inflammatory speeches, such as [All India Majlis-e-Ittahadul Muslimeen chief] Asaduddin Owaisi and his brother Akbaruddin Owaisi, who once said he would kill 100 crore Hindus. However, their accounts are still active and no action has been taken, he added.
The Congress on Tuesday wrote to Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to investigate allegations that the social media company’s India team ignored hate speech policy to avoid ruining its relationship with the BJP.
The Congress’ move was in reference to an article in the Wall Street Journal, which quoted unidentified Facebook insiders who claimed that Indian officials intervened to stop a permanent ban on Singh’s account for posting communal content. The WSJ article sparked a controversy after it reported that Ankhi Das, Facebook’s top public-policy executive in India, opposed the idea of removing incendiary posts by BJP leaders, warning that this could hurt the company’s “commercial interests” in India. Das had also not revealed that Facebook had deleted fake news pages connected to the saffron party, according to the report.