Revealed: Meta approved political ads in India that incited violence

The adverts were submitted midway through voting, which began in April and would continue in phases until 1 June. The election will decide if the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government will return to power for a third term.

In this election, the BJP has been accused of using anti-Muslim rhetoric and stoking fears of attacks on Hindus, who make up 80% of the population, to garner votes.

The social media site X was recently ordered to remove a BJP campaign video accused of demonising Muslims.

The report researchers submitted 22 adverts in English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Kannada to Meta, of which 14 were approved. A further three were approved after small tweaks were made that did not alter the overall provocative messaging. After they were approved, they were immediately removed by the researchers before publication.

Meta has previously been accused of failing to stop the spread of Islamophobic hate speech, calls to violence and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories on its platforms in India. In some cases posts have led to real-life cases of riots and lynchings.

Meta said it had expanded its network of local and third-party factcheckers across all platforms, and was working across 20 Indian languages.