Facebook Now Has More Than 300 Million Users In India, As Government Clamps Down On Social Media, Internet
Facebook (FB) views India as a very important market, said Ajit Mohan, vice president and managing director India-Facebook.
“India is at the top of the stack for Facebook. The appetite to invest in India is huge," he said Thursday in response to a question at the at the Global Technology Summit in Bengaluru.
Mohan acknowledged Facebook has made “mistakes" -- referring to the data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica which allegedly took private information from more than 50 million Facebook users without their permission.
As a result, various governments around the world are investigating the company over data privacy issues.
“We are keen to think through what the new rules of the internet should be. The next stage of growth of innovation will benefit from the new internet rules and regulations," Mohan said. “Facebook is not the same as it was two years ago, our sincerity to change is real. I don’t think there’s anything more [important] than maintaining and restoring the trust of users. And we have an economic incentive to get the trust aspect right."
Mohan conceded it's “fair that there should be scrutiny into a company that is so deeply embedded in the social fabric of society.”
The internet, he cited, also functioned for 15-20 years without a lot of regulation.
“I think the regulations that are coming in will benefit future stages of growth,” he said.
The Indian government sent Facebook more than 22,000 legal and emergency requests for data during the first six months of the year.
“Of the total volume, the U.S. continues to submit the largest number of requests, followed by India, the U.K., Germany and France," Facebook deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said.
Sonderby added Facebook "always scrutinize[s] every government request we receive for account data to make sure it is legally valid. This is true no matter which government makes the request.”
The Indian government is seeking to exert more control over on social media and internet companies through the Personal Data Protection bill which will, among other things, try to prevent the spread of fake news, misinformation and other harmful content.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has also asked social media platforms like Facebook to remove “objectionable” content within 24 hours and notify the government of the origin of such messages within 72 hours.
Mohan added that while revenue from India is “today a small percentage of our global revenues,” India is still “extremely important for Facebook.”
Mohan also noted it is "our privilege to participate in the transformation of India, unlike [what] we can do in China,” where the social networking platform is banned.
He also assured that Facebook has made “massive investments” in developing a process that “safeguards user privacy and what data is released to third parties. Every new product before its launch moves through that process.”
As of February, India had about 303.8 million users -- or about 22% of its total population – up from 135.6 million users in 2015.
Interestingly, Facebook users in India are overwhelmingly male (77.8%). In the U.S., 43% of users are female and 57% are male.
By 2023, India is projected to have 442 million users.
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