Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, privately told human rights groups that security concerns prevented the company from disclosing the full contents of its investigation into hate speech in India.
According to audio recordings obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Meta executives told Indian human rights activists that they wanted to ‘publish more,’ and a decision was made ‘at the highest levels of the company,’ citing security concerns. Meta released its first human rights assessment report in July 2022, an 80-page report that included a dismal general assessment of the Indian population (its largest market). The news comes just days after human rights activists in India claimed that Meta was not being transparent about its human-rights efforts. They claimed Meta was not taking the responsibility seriously and may have “buried the findings.”