India’s government has given Mark Zuckerberg an ultimatum to apologise for Facebook’s brief removal of a video by prime minister Narendra Modi or lose the social platform’s safe harbour protection.
A parliamentary committee claimed that the removal of Mr Modi’s video from Facebook last month was an “attack on democracy”.
If Mr Zuckerberg did not apologise within three days, it said, the government would revoke Facebook’s safe harbour clause, exposing the Meta platform and its executives to legal action, including criminal proceedings, over content posted on it. “Mark Zuckerberg will have to apologise,” the committee said. “Otherwise, a case may be filed.”
A video message by Mr Modi posted on Instagram on 23 July was temporarily restricted when it was later shared on Facebook.
In what was his first selfie-style video on Instagram, Mr Modi addressed the “cockroach” protests that forced the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
India summoned the American tech giant’s executives to lodge a complaint after the video with over 400 million views disappeared from Facebook.
“We have asked Meta to come in at the highest level and explain what is happening,” S Krishnan, secretary at the ministry of electronics and information technology, said on 30 July.
A Meta spokesperson said at the time the post had been blocked inadvertently.
The company told Indian authorities it had established new protocols for accounts of prominent persons to prevent such a situation from recurring, Mr Krishnan added.
On Wednesday, Meta executives met Indian officials for about 45 minutes to explain their position.
The information technology ministry, however, reportedly rejected the explanation as “not reasonable”, saying that if the incident was indeed caused by a technical error then the company should strengthen its systems.
The sparring with Meta is the latest instance of Modi’s government taking on Big Tech over content issues.
In July, the government had ordered Meta to remove child sexual abuse content from Instagram and sought an explanation over allegations that its platforms were promoting such material.
The action came after a BBC Eye investigation found Instagram was running paid adverts promoting child sexual abuse material in India. It found the ads used certain terms to take users to Telegram app channels where they were asked to buy such material.
At the meeting on Wednesday, Meta executives reportedly conveyed an apology from Mr Zuckerberg over the availability of child sexual abuse material and deepfake content on his social media platforms.
“Meta admitted that a lot of money was paid for boosting certain types of content,” Hindustan Times quoted unnamed sources in the ministry of electronics and information technology as saying. “They accepted that a lot of illegal content was being promoted. The paid promotion was carried out for a specific audience. They apologised and regretted the mistake.”
It could not be ascertained, the paper added, if Mr Zuckerberg had apologised for removing the prime minister’s video as well.
