Greater Human Intervention Needed In Content Removal: Centre To Meta

The government has told Facebook's parent Meta to ensure greater human intervention for content removal tasks, people with direct knowledge of the matter said today.

Meta's team was scheduled to meet MeitY officials today for a third time, days after the government strongly criticised the platform over critical issues linked to compliance.

Another meeting is likely to be held next week, sources said.

The American company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has been instructed to include more people who understand Indian languages and context in their teams, sources said.

These steps would help in improving the efficiency of content removal work, they added.

During the meeting, Meta officials explained in detail the mechanism its platforms follow on content removal and other compliance matters, sources said.

The company's global team came to India after Zuckerberg apologised for removing a video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government also found Meta did not do enough to remove child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) from its platforms.

The Meta team is likely to remain in India for a few more days, with three to four additional meetings expected to be held, news agency ANI reported. The upcoming discussions will cover issues related to WhatsApp, they said.

There are growing concerns over the increasing sophistication of deepfakes. Globally, the changing quality of deepfakes is making it more difficult to detect them. Government officials are also in touch with all other major platforms like X and Telegram on issues linked to compliance and technical matters.

Zuckerberg's apology comes amid the National Human Rights Commission's (NHRC) data that showed it got complaints on more than 50 cases of CSEAM on Instagram over the past week. The NHRC has issued notices to the police in several states and Meta.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Material (CSEAM) on Instagram over the past week and has initiated action by issuing notices to several state police departments and Meta. NHRC member Priyank Kanoongo shared the information on X. He added that, based on the information received, notices have been issued to the police chiefs of Punjab, Delhi, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Haryana and Bihar.

The notices told the authorities to file first information reports (FIRs) and take action in the reported cases.