The Modi Government should develop an indigenous alternative to ‘Facebook’ ! : T Raja Singh, BJP MLA, Telangana

Mumbai – “Today, devout Hindu organisations in our country are under attack from the foreign social media. The official Facebook Pages of such organisations are being blocked, while the ‘blue verified’ tag is being revoked for the Vice President of India and for Dr. Mohan Bhagwat (Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). The Facebook Page of a renowned news channel – ‘Sudarshan News’ is also blocked. While my Facebook Page is blocked despite the fact that I am an MLA, the Pages of Dr. Zakir Naik who promotes terrorism, Akbaruddin Owaisi who openly speaks about the annihilation of Hindus and many other terrorist organisations based out of Pakistan seem to be enjoying their days on these social media platforms. It is therefore my earnest request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to develop an indigenous alternative to ‘Facebook’ as a part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative. How long will you allow the social media like ‘Facebook’ to earn crores of Rupees at the cost of our own people ?”, asked T Raja Singh, a devout Hindu MLA from Telangana.

He was speaking at an Online special webinar on ‘Hindu-phobic Facebook’ organised by Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS). The event was viewed by 8,684 people on HJS website Hindujagruti.org, YouTube and Twitter. The trend with the hashtag ‘#Facebook_Suppress_Hindu_Voices’ received more than 72,000 tweets that condemned ‘Facebook’ for the unjust ban on the Pages of devout Hindu organisations. Over 5,000 citizens signed an Online petition against this ban.

Mr. Chetan Rajhans (National Spokesperson for Sanatan Sanstha), said, “Facebook has blocked Pages of Sanatan Sanstha, Sanatan Prabhat, Sanatan Shop and many other devout Hindu organisations on the basis of false propaganda spread by US-based ‘TIME’ magazine. If such arbitrary action is taken against the Pages of devout Hindu organisations without any substantial evidence, the Government of India should ban ‘Facebook’ itself for denying the constitutional right of freedom of speech and expression to its citizens”.

Mr. Bharat Bhushan (Founder of ‘Bharat Jagruti Social Networking Global Site’) said, “Such actions restrict devout Hindu organisations only, while Pages that promote the ‘Changai Sabha’ seem to be given a free hand to evangelize as much as possible”.

Mr. Sunil Ghanwat (State Organiser of HJS for Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh) said, “Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, who has pleaded guilty on charges of data leakage and apologised after paying a fine, should first muster the courage to ban the Pages of terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba and other similar terrorist organisations. How can some foreign companies with the sole motive of making money put restrictions to our freedom of speech and expression ?”