Top executives of Meta are set to meet senior officials of the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) on August 5 and 6 over a host of issues that have put the social media giant in the crosshairs of the government, including child sexual abuse content on its platforms and temporary restrictions on accounts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other prominent personalities.
The discussion would cover a range of issues related to legal compliance, synthetically generated content, safeguards on content takedowns involving prominent personalities, MeitY Secretary S Krishnan said on the sidelines of an event on Tuesday. The focus will be on getting a clearer picture of Meta’s understanding of Indian laws and how it intends to ensure compliance, he added.
Joel Kaplan, the chief global affairs officer at Meta, is expected to be present at the meeting.
The government summoned Meta’s top global executives after a video posted by the Prime Minister on Facebook on the exam question paper leak issue was restricted for a few hours before being restored in the last week of July. Meta attributed the incident to a technical glitch and apologised, but MeitY found the explanation “inadequate”. The chief of a parliamentary committee looking into the matter has called for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally apologise for the episode.
The panel also reportedly raised concerns about Meta’s conduct. Asked whether MeitY would pursue legal action against Meta in light of the committee’s concerns, Krishnan said the ministry has already issued formal notices to the company and that a legal process is ongoing.
Krishnan also expressed the government’s concerns over child sexual abuse material on Meta’s platforms and the measures taken to address it, as well the extent to which synthetically generated content and deepfakes are being tracked. Given Meta’s standing as one of the world’s leading technology companies, he said, the government wants to understand why some of these things have not been working the way they are supposed to work and what are the challenges.
Meanwhile, on the proposal to introduce usernames on WhatsApp and other messaging platforms, Krishnan said the government is examining representations and will come up with a concrete action soon.