On Sunday, Facebook took down a social media page, and eventually restored it several hours later. The page in question belonged to the Kisan Ekta Morcha. Since then, outraged social media users have since taken to Twitter to call out Facebook. At the time of writing this article, "#ZuckerbergShameOnYou" and "#ShameOnFacebook" were trending topics on the microblogging platform, with nearly 30,000 posts.
It began on Sunday, when, amid the ongoing agitation, Kisan Ekta Morcha found its Facebook page "unpublished". The handle had been publishing updates from the ongoing protests, and had even countered claims put forth by the BJP-led government in the recent past.
"Now this is too much democracy. A peaceful protest by kisaan and Facebook deletes Kisan Ekta Morcha Facebook page," the organisation tweeted in response. In another post, it shared a Facebook screengrab that showed that the page in question had been unpublished.
"This is because Kisan Ekta Morcha goes against out Community Standards on spam," read the explanation on the shared screenshot.
Activist and politician Yogendra Yadav had been taking part in a Facebook livestream from the Kisan Ekta Morcha page when the ban took place.
"In midst of a Facebook Live I was doing from Kisan Ekta Morcha's page, we get a notification that the FB page has been unpublished. There must be something about farmers that this govt is particularly scared of and something about this govt that Facebook is particularly scared of," Yadav tweeted from his own handle soon after.
Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association and political activist Kavita Krishnan also took to Twitter to write about the topic. She also cited the recent controversy over Facebook's alleged support for Bajrang Dal's social media handle.
While the page was eventually restored, that has not stopped the criticism. Many have also brought up recent controversies where Facebook has been linked to the ruling BJP. Others still connected this to the Jio-Facebook deal and reiterated calls for boycott of Jio products and brands.
Take a look at some of the posts:
