Mark Zuckerberg may have given Kapil Mishra's example to explain 'incitement of violence': Report

Facebook may have hinted that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra’s controversial speech in February, allegedly linked to the Delhi riots, qualifies as 'incitement of violence' as per its community guidelines.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the social media giant listed out certain instances which violate the community guidelines.

“You know, if somebody is actually going to encourage violence, I think in general, you just — you just don’t want that content up. But our policies around incitement of violence, you know, have pretty — have some clear precedents right around if people have to be calling for violence or targeting specific individuals. There have been examples of government officials around the world, we have taken them down. There was a legislator in Hong Kong who called for the police to come in and clear out and kill the protesters to restore order in society. You know, that was — that’s obviously inciting and calling for violence. We took that down,” Zuckerberg said in a video interaction with 25,000 of his employees.

As per Vox, Zuckerberg reportedly said: "There have been cases in India, for example, where someone said, 'Hey if the police don’t take care of this, our supporters will get in there and clear the streets.' That is kind of encouraging supporters to go do that in a more direct way, and we took that down. So we have a precedent for that."

Zuckerberg’s quote is from a leaked audio of the interaction.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

The interaction was held after employees at the social media company expressed displeasure with the Facebook’s failure to flag or takedown controversial posts made by United States President Donald Trump regarding the ‘#BlackLivesMatter’ protests.

In February, Mishra called a rally in favour of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at the Maujpur traffic signal in New Delhi, close to Jafrabad Metro Station where at least 500 people had been staging a sit-in protest against the controversial law.

Mishra tweeted: "We have given a three-day ultimatum to the Delhi Police to get the road cleared. Get the Jafrabad and Chandbagh road cleared."

In a video tweeted by Mishra, he was seen addressing the gathering in which he allegedly said: “They (protestors) want to create trouble in Delhi. That’s why they have closed the roads. That’s why they have created a riot-like situation here. We have not pelted any stone.

“Till the US president is in India, we are leaving the area peacefully. After that we won’t listen to you (police) if the roads are not vacated by then,” he told the crowd.

The tweet, along with the accompanying video, was later removed.