New Delhi: Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Information Technology, on Wednesday sent out a stern warning to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the data breach allegations. “Mr Mark Zuckerberg, you better know the observation of IT Minister of India, if any data theft of Indians is done with the collusion of Facebook systems, it will not be tolerated. We have got stringent powers in the IT Act including summoning you in India,” he said.
He also said that any attempt by any organisation, including Facebook, to influence India’s electoral process will not be tolerated. “We support free exchange of ideas on social media but any attempt by social media including FB of trying to influence India’s electoral process through undesirable means will not be tolerated. Let Facebook note it very clearly,” Prasad said.
The Union Minister also questioned the Congress party’s link with Cambridge Analytica, the firm that has been accused of stealing data from Facebook and influence elections in several countries. “Will the Congress Party now depend upon data manipulation and data theft to win elections? What link does Cambridge Analytica have with social media management of Rahul Gandhi and Congress Party,” asked Prasad on Twitter.
“There were news reports about use of bots to artificially increase the social media following of Rahul Gandhi in recent time,” he said. Prasad further questioned as to how much data of Indian citizens had the Congress shared with Cambridge Analytica.
