Facebook India Appoints Sunil Abraham as Public Policy Director

Facebook on Monday said it has appointed Sunil Abraham as the Public Policy Director for Data and Emerging Tech, to lead and shape the company's stance on tech policy issues in India.

Reporting to the Public Policy Director, he will be responsible for building partnerships and engagements with key stakeholders in the public policy area of data privacy, consumer protection, and AI led innovation for new products and services, Facebook said in a statement.

As part of the public policy leadership team, Abraham will contribute to important policy development initiatives and proceedings in India and the South Asia region on data protection, privacy, new and emerging tech and represent Facebook's position in these multi-stakeholder processes, it said.

"Sunil's experience in the field of technology policy and his vast research on data reforms are an ideal fit for Facebook. With his expertise and experience, he will help us in our mission to build transparency, accountability and empowered communities," said Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director, Facebook -India, South & Central Asia.

Wrangle over WSJ report

Recently, there was a political storm over a Wall Street Journal report, which had alleged that Facebook had ignored extremist posts by BJP leaders.

However, Facebook had rejected charges that decisions were being influenced by political leanings of individuals, saying the process followed at the platform is designed to ensure no one person can influence outcomes, let alone take any unilateral decisions.

Abraham will be reporting to Das. He has almost 25 years experience in working with Indian and global civil society organisations. In 1998, he co-founded Mahiti Infotech, an open technology service provider for the nonprofit sector, and in 2008, he co-founded the Centre for Internet and Society, a policy and academic research organisation focusing on accessibility, openness, access to knowledge, Internet governance, digital humanities and telecom regulation.

He has been an advocate of the free/open source software and was a part of the Wikimedia movement starting in 2004 when he co-managed the International Open Source Network for UNDP. Most recently he spent a year as Endowed Professor at ArtEZ University for the Arts in the Netherlands.