Government Asks Meta Executives To Comply With Indian Laws: Sources

The government has directed Meta's top global executives to comply with Indian laws during their first round of talks today, sources said, with the brief removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Facebook post and circulation of abusive content on their platform being among the key issues discussed.

Meta executives met Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S Krishnan and other government officials for about 45 minutes this morning, sources said.

During the meeting, government officials flagged concerns over arbitrary takedowns of posts and selective enforcement, in view of the temporary takedown of PM Modi's video on July 23. They also clarified the direction to social media platforms to comply with Indian laws was not aimed at curbing free speech, sources said. 

The Meta representatives, including global public policy head Joel Kaplan, explained the reasons behind such takedowns, they said. They informed the officials that they have stringent moderation and fact-checking systems, they stressed.

They further said that misuse of their platforms is neither deliberate nor knowingly allowed, sources said.

A second round of meetings is scheduled tomorrow, sources added.

The meetings come amid the government's scrutiny of Meta after PM Modi's video, in which he addressed the youth and promised strict action against paper leaks, was briefly restricted on Facebook on July 23.

Meta quickly restored the post after receiving a major backlash.

The Meta team is also scheduled to meet Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw later in the day.

Earlier this week, Meta officials faced tough questions from the government at a meeting with the Parliamentary panel over the incident.

While the company apologised for what it described as a "technical glitch" that led to the removal of the video, the IT ministry said the explanation was "not reasonable".

Government officials maintained that if the removal was indeed caused by a glitch, Meta, as a technology company, should improve its own tools to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

PM Modi's post, first shared on Instagram and later on Facebook on July 23, was his first direct selfie video aimed at engaging with the youth and highlighting the government's commitment to cracking down on paper leaks amid student protests at the time.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Committee on Communications and Information Technology issued a three-day ultimatum to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to apologise for the brief removal of PM Modi's video and take action against those responsible.

The panel, chaired by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, said the deletion of PM Modi's video - who is the representative of 1.4 billion Indians - is an "attack on democracy".