Parliamentary Standing Committee Chair Nishikant Dubey has insisted that Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg should personally apologize over the issue of the video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi being removed from Facebook.
A meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee (Information Technology) was held in Delhi on Monday under the chairmanship of Nishikant Dubey. The meeting discussed regulating social media and digital platforms.
Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan and Electronics and Information Technology Ministry Secretary S. Krishnan attended the meeting.
Responding to the standing committee’s summons, representatives from social media companies including Google, X, Meta, and Snapchat appeared in person.
The video posted by Prime Minister Modi on Facebook last week was removed and then reposted after a short while. The company later explained that it was a technical glitch.
Members of the parliamentary committee pointed out the removal of the Prime Minister’s video and objected that Meta earns substantial revenue in India but does not comply with Indian laws.
At the same time, there are allegations that bias exists in the algorithm, and that while obscene videos are freely available on social media platforms run by Meta, important videos are being removed. Who removed Prime Minister Modi’s video from Facebook?
Who will take responsibility for this issue? the parliamentary committee members asked Meta representatives.
Following this, Meta representatives expressed their regret to the parliamentary committee and also said they were prepared to apologize for this matter.
They emphasized that this issue is not merely about offering an apology, and that responsibility must be determined and legal action taken against those responsible.
The meeting lasted for about 3 hours. Following this, Nishikant Dubey told reporters: They themselves (Meta representatives) admitted that videos were removed for up to 5 hours.
They do not pay attention to the orders of the Union Home Ministry and the Ministry of Information Technology. This is a serious issue. In this matter, Zuckerberg should personally apologize.
If Zuckerberg does not apologize, the protection granted to them under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act will be withdrawn (that section states that social media companies are not responsible for comments posted by third parties). Dubey said Meta has been given 10 days to state its position on this matter.
