Facebook Aims To Equip 5 Million People With Digital Skills By 2021

Facebook said that it plans to help people expand their business and enter global markets by training them how to use digital media tools. The social media giant which is based in the US has already succeeded in training nearly one million people through many different plans. India is considered one of Facebook’s largest markets.

Facebook Public Policy Director for Indian, South and Central Asian region, Ankhi Das said that: “Facebook is devoted to helping small companies enter global markets, and to reach out to people, we are working with numerous organizations. We plan that by 2021 5 million people will be equipped with digital skills as well as global market access.” One million people from 150 cities and 48,000 villages have been trained by Facebook and its 50 partners.

Within Facebook’s Community Boost programme, users are trained on how to use Facebook and Instagram, a photo-sharing platform, to establish and develop their businesses.

“At Facebook, we want to make sure that the benefits of networking are realized by everyone and everywhere in India. Our mission here at Facebook is to support and equip local business founders with digital skills to expand their business” she continued.

The training modules in online safety and digital marketing which are developed by Facebook are offered in 14 languages. There have been 29 states that Facebook’s programme reach. And many strong response has been received in states like Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan, Odisha and Maharashtra and many other states.

While being asked about methods used to fight hate and abusive speech on the platform, Das mentioned that 1.5 billion piece of content have already been taken down this year. She said that: “Issue of abuse and hate speech is taken very seriously. And we are aware of our responsibility. To promote community education, we have worked with civil society organizations. Beside a big global team of reviewers, we are also making used of artificial intelligence tool (AI) to recognize inappropriate content.

Das said that they are still working on political ads as the issue involved with these is important. On October, Richard Allan, Facebook vice president for public policy said that before the 2019 general elections, a political ads archive specifically for India will be revealed. Through this, civil society would be allowed to go and see what kind of activities is happening. If they find anything doubtful, they can raise questions about it.