Senior Meta executives to visit India over content moderation policies

Visit follows the temporary takedown of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Facebook post, with the IT Ministry set to seek details of Meta's moderation processes

Senior executives from Meta’s global team are likely to visit India within the next fortnight to meet senior government officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to explain their content moderation policies, the ministry's secretary, S Krishnan, said on Thursday.

 

Speaking on the sidelines of an event, Krishnan said Meta had introduced new protocols for handling accounts of prominent individuals on July 28, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s post was temporarily taken down on Facebook.

 

Meta has since said the post was taken down because of an error in its automated content moderation systems.

 

At the meeting with Meta's global executives, the IT Ministry is likely to question them on the technical aspects behind the takedown and seek an explanation of the company's policy governing such actions, he said.

 

Earlier this week, the government sent a summons to Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Joel Kaplan, asking him to appear in person to explain the company’s content moderation policies.

 

Kaplan, who took over the role in January 2025, was sent the summons on Tuesday after Meta explained why Modi’s post, in which he addressed agitating students about the measures the government was taking against examination paper leaks, had been taken down.

 

Apart from meeting Meta executives, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has summoned senior executives from Meta, X, Snapchat and Google at 4 pm on August 3 to explain how they implement policies on their platforms to ensure the digital privacy of women, children and other users.

 

In addition, the government is examining the responses of peer-to-peer messaging platforms on the issue of usernames, Krishnan said.