Is Anand Mahindra coming out with alternative to Facebook?

Amidst talks of Facebook ‘data breach’, chairman of Mahindra group Anand Mahindra has mooted the idea of establishing a domestic alternative of the American-based social media giant.

Anand Mahindra in a tweet said, “Beginning to wonder if it’s time to consider having our own social networking company that is very widely owned & professionally managed & willingly regulated.”

Seeking suggestions, Mahindra asked in his tweet, “Any relevant Indian start-ups out there?If any young teams have such plans I’d like to see if I can assist with seed capital.”

Beginning to wonder if it’s time to consider having our own social networking company that is very widely owned&professionally managed&willingly regulated.Any relevant Indian start-ups out there?If any young teams have such plans I’d like to see if I can assist with seed capital pic.twitter.com/nBSkQk0hCp

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) March 26, 2018

Mahindra got instant support from India’s IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who said, “Wonderful idea my good friend @anandmahindra. Fervently hope to see you taking the lead.”

Wonderful idea my good friend @anandmahindra. Fervently hope to see you taking the lead. https://t.co/6pXps0o9AE

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) March 27, 2018

Mahindra, who opened up a communicative channel on Twitter, where he has received multiple responses, later took to Twitter to respond to the suggestions.

Thank you all for the flood of responses, suggestions & proposals. Please copy your tweets to my colleague @j_bindra who will work with me on this exploration. If nothing else, it should be fun… https://t.co/U0DfzPlLEH

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) March 27, 2018

Facebook is facing the heat after Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, was accused of harvesting data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and using the data to help politicians, including US President Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.

Also read | Data scandal: Facebook runs full-page apology ad in UK, US newspapers

European Union (EU) and British lawmakers have demanded that social media giant Facebook should clarify data breach following revelations that personal data was massively misused for political purposes.

On 22 March, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the social media giant “made mistakes” over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a “breach of trust” had occurred between it and its users.

Controversy over Facebook data leak also saw verified Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla disappeared on 23 March, minutes after Elon Musk responded to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down his rocket company SpaceX, electric carmaker Tesla and his own official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement.

“What’s Facebook?” Musk had said on 24 March, while sarcastically replying to a tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook by tweeting “It is time.”

Musk, CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, Inc, replied to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down the SpaceX, Tesla and Musk official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement by saying “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.”