The Indian government has summoned the global team of Meta on Wednesday amid continued uproar over its content moderation policies. A case was registered against the head of Meta India last week after multiple videos on Facebook depicted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an “abusive manner”. The team was also summoned for a meeting with the government in late July for “erroneously” removing a video posted by the PM for several hours. 

IT Secretary S Krishnan confirmed the summons on August 5 and 6. News agency PTI quoted him as saying that the government would raise multiple concerns with the Meta global team — from the CSAM issue handling to wrongful action against a prominent account.

“Leading tech companies like Meta should be able to ensure systems work as intended…Meta executives are expected to meet govt representatives on 5th and 6th August. Issues related to India’s law, compliance issues, synthetically generated information, and safeguards on content takedowns related to prominent personalities are expected to be taken up,” the MeitY Secretary added.

This comes days after a video on action against examination paper leaks posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Facebook was briefly removed, with Meta attributing the incident to a technical error.

Nishikant Dubey demands apology from Mark Zuckerberg

The summons came even as BJP MP Nishikant Dubey demanded an apology from Mark Zuckerberg. The senior politician dubbed the removal of a video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for five hours a “very serious matter” — accusing the Meta CEO of trying to destabilise the country. He warned that India would consider withdrawing “the safe harbour protection under Section 79” if Zuckerberg did not apologise.

“Meta India removed the Prime Minister’s content. This is not the first time Meta India has done this. If you recall, Zuckerberg himself made a statement in January regarding the 2024 elections and later apologized. This shows that his intention is to destabilise the country. When a video of the Prime Minister of India can be removed, and they themselves admitted that the content was missing for five hours…” he told news agency ANI.