Meta global team meets top IT ministry officials on govt summons over PM's FB post takedown

Meta global team on Wednesday met top IT ministry officials, following government summons over the removal of PM Narendra Modi's post on Facebook.

Wrongful action on prominent post and lapses in curbing child sexual abuse material on social media platform were among the concerns raised by the government.

Top Meta executives, including Joel Kaplan, Global Affairs Officer, met IT Secretary S Krishnan and other senior officials of MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) in a discussion that lasted 45 minutes.

The team is also slated to meet Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw later today.

The meeting is significant as the government had summoned Meta's top global executives after Prime Minister Modi's recent Facebook post addressing Indian youth and promising stringent action against paper leaks was briefly restricted on the platform.

While the US-headquartered social media giant had attributed the incident to a technical glitch and apologised, MeitY had found the explanation "inadequate". The company, which owns Facebook, had said that the content was removed "in error" and was subsequently restored on the platform.

Meta has also been under regulatory scrutiny over the issue of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram, and the government, last month, slapped a notice on the social media giant over the issue.

"There are a range of issues...the CSAM issue was raised, so what measures have been taken regarding that, and synthetically generated information ... to what extent that is being looked at. Then, for prominent personalities when they have verified accounts, if content has to be taken down, there have to be safeguards...all of these will be the issues (taken up)," Krishnan told reporters on Tuesday.

Meta, as one of the leading technology companies in the world, should have the technology to address such issues effectively, he had said.

"We would like to understand from them (Meta) as to why some of these things have not been working the way they are supposed to work, and what are the challenges," Krishnan added.

For platforms, there needs to be a clear understanding of India's law, what compliance must look like, "and a clearer understanding of how they intend to make sure compliance happens", Krishnan said.

Government sources had earlier said that the issue is not just about technical aspects, but also about "national security and public order". As the government delivers an ultimatum to Meta, the company’s global team will be "categorically" asked to clarify on issues around algorithmic bias, how their algorithm operates and the company's role in public order.

In the immediate aftermath of the issue, Meta had informed the IT ministry that posts by the prime minister and select prominent accounts will be subject to additional oversight on the platform, with multiple levels of checks involving senior company officials. Meta wrote to the government outlining the specifics of enhanced and rigorous safeguards it implemented (on July 28) for content posted by PM Modi and other prominent accounts.

Modi's July 23 Instagram post, later shared on Facebook, had marked his first direct selfie video aimed at engaging with the youth and underscoring the government's commitment to crack down on paper leaks amid students' protests organised by the Cockroach Janta Party at that time. The Facebook version of the post was briefly restricted by Meta before being restored.

The IT ministry maintained that Meta's explanation to the government, citing a technical glitch in the automated content filters, was "not reasonable". It had said that if indeed a glitch in the automated system caused the error, then Meta, being a technology company, must surely hasten to improve its own tools.

Meta officials had attributed the error to AI-powered automated content filters reviewing shared posts and subsequent videos that had circulated following the original post by the prime minister. Meta had told the government that its automated filters inadvertently ended up briefly removing the original post itself.

By summoning global executives, the government wants to ensure that Meta's leadership – all the way to the top – is made fully aware of concerns being raised by Indian authorities. The summoning of global executives, rather than only local representatives, underscores the Centre's intent to directly engage Meta's international leadership on platform accountability.

A Parliamentary standing committee on Wednesday demanded an apology from Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg over Modi's speech being removed from Facebook.

In a letter to the secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, a director of the Lok Sabha secretariat said protection and immunity for Zuckerberg may be withdrawn if there is no apology in three days.