Anand Mahindra proposes funding for alternative social media rivaling Facebook

New Delhi: Following the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica privacy breach fiasco, Mahindra and Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra has expressed his desire to explore an alternative social media platform rivaling Facebook.

Mahindra earlier this week called upon India`s tech entrepreneurs to come up with an “own social networking company" that has better regulation.

Mahindra has even offered seed funding to startups who can come up with such idea. He tweeted:

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's invitation was quickly absorbed by the Twiteratis and a response even came from his own chief digital officer Jaspreet Bindra. Bindra tweeted:

Absolutely, @anandmahindra. Look forward to work with you and selected teams to build a next gen #social3.0 network, out of India. — Jaspreet Bindra (@j_bindra) March 27, 2018

Mahindra later followed with another tweet, saying:

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

Data mining firm Cambridge Analytica has been accused of harvesting personal information of over 50 million Facebook users illegally to influence polls in several countries.

Facebook's data breach scandal also sparked a furore in India with IT Minster Ravi Shankar Prasad warning the firm of "stringent" action for any attempt to influence polls through data theft and threatening to summon Zuckerberg, if needed.

The government has also issued notice to Cambridge Analytica, seeking its immediate response on whether it was involved in misuse of data to profile Indians and influence their voting behaviour. Facebook has already issued an apology with Zuckerberg assuring stringent steps to secure user data.