Meta Human Rights Report: A Flippant Account Overlooking India’s Deep-Rooted Problems

Tech giant Meta has released its first human rights assessment report, the Meta Human Rights Report July 2022, looking at the impact the company’s platforms – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – have on human rights. 

The report features a separate segment for India and to put it mildly, Meta missed the mark with that one, with few revelations to be had in the report. Further, Meta’s insights seem to congratulate the company on a job well done.

“It found Meta platforms had provided an invaluable space for civil society to organize and gain momentum, provided users with essential information and facts on voting, and also enabled important public health updates,” the report read. However, the report failed to mention the misinformation campaigns during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It also noted that Meta had committed to platform safety and integrity in India, and had devoted considerable energy in recent years to promoting respect for its users, and to protecting user safety,” the report read. And, it ignored the fact that just last year, it was discovered that Facebook was used to spread hate speech in the country. 

Not just in India, but in the US, it was discovered that Facebook’s business practices led to the January 2021 riots at the US Capitol building. According to a July 2020 report from NYT, inflammatory content on Facebook increased by 300% after December 2019.

In a series of articles collectively called the Facebook Files, the Wall Street Journal exposed Meta’s delayed response to multiple human rights issues that were being caused using the company’s platform.

In a 2021 report citing internal documents, the WSJ noted that Facebook was being used to spread religious hate in India, a point that the human rights report failed to cover entirely.

It should also be noted that Meta has published HRIA reports on various countries throughout the years. It did a 62-page report on Myanmar and released executive summaries of HRIA reports done for Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia. In contrast, India’s coverage has been limited to four pages in the report.

Meta Director of Human Rights Miranda Sissons was cited as saying that Meta doesn’t plan to release the India HRIA report in its entirety, which could explain the apparent lack of insights from India.

With more than 410 Mn users from India, the country has the largest number of Facebook users in the world. India is the biggest market in the world for Meta and therefore, the report should have addressed the severe problems exacerbated by its platforms, which it didn’t.

The company noted that it commissioned the report from Foley Hoag LLP, a New York-based law firm. The project was launched in March 2020 and ended in June 2021. Foley Hoag LLP was tasked with conducting an independent human rights impact assessment “on potential human rights risks in India related to its platforms.”

According to the report, the law firm conducted interviews with 40 civil society stakeholders, academics, and journalists from India.

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Update | 16th July 2022, 2:30 PM

The report mistakenly mentioned that the January 6, 2021 riots happened at the White House. Changes have been made to reflect the correct location.