Kashmir Digits

When Facebook disappeared from the internet space for 6 hours on Monday, it wasn’t the only crisis that the social media giant was going through.

The official reason given for the outage was that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between its data centres caused issues that interrupted this communication.

This disruption to network traffic had a cascading on the way Facebook data centres communicate, bringing services to a halt.

Ironically the outage came at a time when the Mark Zuckerberg owned company was dealing with accusations made by a whistleblower published in The Wall Street Journal.

On Sunday in an episode of CBS ’60 minutes’, the whisteblower was revealed as Francis Haugen, former employee at Facebook.

She claimed that the company is aware of how its platforms are used to spread misinformation, hate and violence.

Crisis deepened for the social media network after Haugen testified before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday, accusing Facebook of harming children, and weakening democracy.

Haugen’s revelations are particularly significant as Facebook has been under the scanner in recent years for not doing enough to prevent hate speech online and to protect the data of its vast user base.

According to the whistleblower complaint, despite being aware that “RSS users, groups, and pages promote fear-mongering, anti-Muslim narratives”, social media giant Facebook could not take action or flag this content.

Cover Up or Technical fault?

While the outage could simply have been the technical issue that Facebook mentioned, the timing may seem odd.

Just a day after Francis Haugen revealed Facebook’s dark secrets, the social media giant alongwith its partner apps WhatsApp and Instagram went down. This perhaps can be seen as an attempt to first stop the rapid spread of this information through its own platforms and then clean up its own mess when it comes to taking no action against hate speeches against minorities.

In the past Facebook has also been accused of letting hate monering and anti minority comments linger on its platforms, while they have been quick to snuff out comments made against the ruling party.

In Kashmir, we have seen how comments and accounts deemed ‘anti government’ have been removed as well as suspended.

This is a dangerous trend- suffocating the voice of dissent in an increasingly shrinking democratic space could lead to great harm in the near future.

Doing it in a place like Kashmir, where conflict is second nature and where the growing voice of dissent must be heard is preposterous.

Also taking no action against those who indulge in anti minority abuse openly is another black spot on Facebook. What Haugen’s revelations mean is that, it has favoured those in power and played a notorious role in diminishing democracy in various parts of the world.

We as Kashmiris must hold Facebook accountable for how it has unfairly treated us at times. It is one thing to remove or take down a comment that could incite hatred, but its a different proposition entirely to silence any voice of discontent purely to appeal to those in power.

This is not a call by any means to boycott Facebook, but realising it is a double edged sword and if they are not doing anything, it is up to us to decide if it is doing us more harm than good.