New Delhi: The central government held consultations today with a delegation of Meta’s international representatives regarding the removal of the Prime Minister’s video.
Last month, in connection with the protest held by Gen Z youth at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, Prime Minister Modi posted a selfie video on Instagram. However, the video was removed from Meta platforms within just a few minutes. The video was restored only after a five-hour struggle. This caused a major controversy within Indian government circles.
In this regard, the parliamentary standing committee has urged Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to apologize to Prime Minister Modi within the next three days.
Furthermore, Meta has been warned that if it does not apologize to the Prime Minister, it could lose the protection provided under Section 79 of the Indian Information Technology Act for third-party content.
In this situation, a team comprising Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, Meta Vice President Neil Potts, Senior Director Rafael Frankel, and officials Aman Jain and Priya Srinivasan, among others, met Information Technology Department Secretary S. Krishnan today on behalf of the Central Government.
This meeting lasted about 45 minutes. During the meeting, along with the controversy over the Prime Minister’s video being removed, the presence of inappropriate content on Meta platforms was also discussed. Meta was urged to remove content involving sexual exploitation centered on minors.
During the meeting, the Meta team explained in detail the background behind the Prime Minister’s video being removed by mistake.
However, the government side, which did not accept the Meta team’s response, will hold talks again tomorrow with Meta’s international team. It has been reported that they will discuss what kinds of biases exist in Meta’s algorithm.
Social media platforms can operate only in accordance with the legal framework of the Indian government. The Indian side explained to Meta that this would not amount to suppressing freedom of expression.
Meta officials said there are strict laws and fact-checking procedures in place to prevent obscene content. Even so, they stated that their platform being misused here and there does not happen intentionally.
Already, Meta has come under regulatory scrutiny over the appearance of child sexual exploitation and abuse material (Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material) in Instagram advertisements. Notably, last month the government also sent a notice to the company regarding this issue.
