The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned officials from tech giants Meta and Google in connection with a money laundering probe linked to several illegal online betting platforms, according to official sources on Saturday.
The executives have been directed to appear before the agency on July 21 to provide their statements under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). As of now, neither company has issued a response to the summons.
The federal agency is probing multiple platforms hosting illegal betting and gambling links, including instances of advertisements placed for them on various Internet-based social media outlets and app stores.
ED Summons Tech Giants to Probe How Illegal Betting Sites Advertise on Their Platforms:
The tech giants are understood to have been called by the ED to understand how such illegal platforms are able to place advertisements on their social media and communication links.
Some actors, celebrities and sports persons are also under the scanner of the agency in these cases, and they are also expected to be summoned by the ED soon.
The ED has said illegal online betting and gambling platforms were cheating innocent people of their hard-earned money and also laundering and evading taxes worth crores of rupees.
Meta has issued an apology after an auto-translation error on its platforms wrongly suggested the death of an Indian chief minister. According to the Press Trust of India (PTI), the mistranslation occurred on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta issues apology to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah
On Tuesday, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah shared a condolence message in Kannada, expressing grief over the passing of a well-known actress. However, the automated English translation inaccurately stated that Mr. Siddaramaiah himself had “passed away.”
Responding to the incident, a Meta spokesperson said on Thursday that the issue had been resolved, stating, “We’ve corrected a bug that briefly led to an incorrect translation from Kannada.”
The original tribute post by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, meant to honour veteran actress B Saroja Devi, was mistakenly translated to suggest that he himself had passed away.
Reacting to the blunder, Mr. Siddaramaiah criticised Meta’s Kannada auto-translation tool, accusing it of “distorting facts” and “misleading the public.” He stressed that such inaccuracies are particularly dangerous when it comes to official or sensitive communication.
In response to the incident, Siddaramaiah’s media advisor, KV Prabhakar, sent a letter to Meta on Thursday. He requested that the company correct the translation error and temporarily disable the Kannada auto-translate function until its reliability is improved. Prabhakar also recommended that Meta collaborate with Kannada language experts to ensure greater accuracy moving forward.
With inputs from PTI.