Govt tells Meta to ensure strict adherence to Indian law, content rules

The Centre has asked Meta to strengthen compliance with Indian laws, tighten content moderation and explain its algorithms, moderation systems and safeguards

The government has asked Meta to ensure strict adherence to the law of the land, including its algorithms, checks and balances on content uploaded across its platforms, and whether the company has sufficient guardrails to address potential transgressions, sources said. 

The second consecutive meeting between Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan took place late Thursday evening. 

Kaplan had met Vaishnaw on Wednesday as well, during which he apologised to the minister on behalf of the company for the erroneous takedown of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s video, in which he addressed students protesting the leaking of the question papers for the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET). 

 

On Thursday, during the meeting that lasted more than an hour, senior government officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology also questioned Meta executives about the processes and systems the company has in place for various kinds of content, and how it decides content visibility. 

“We have given them certain action items on a range of issues that we have monitored over the last several days. For example, their delayed inaction on the restoration of inadvertently taken-down posts has been flagged. Similarly, we have questioned them as to how, despite mechanisms, there is proliferation of child sexual abuse material across their platforms,” a senior government official said, asking not to be named. 

While Kaplan is likely to fly out of India soon and will be unable to attend any further meetings with the IT ministry officials on this trip, sources said that technical, policy, and legal teams from India and the US will continue to meet government officials over the next three to four days to answer all queries. 

Kaplan has been accompanied by Neil Potts, the vice-president of public policy at Meta, Rafael Frankel, the head of Asia Pacific public policy at the company, Aman Jain, the head of public policy in India, and other senior executives during the meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. 

On Wednesday, before meeting Vaishnaw, Kaplan and his team also met IT Ministry secretary S Krishnan and other senior officials. 

The early afternoon meeting, lasted about 45 minutes, during which the ministry officials questioned Meta executives on several aspects, such as the presence of Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM), the takedown of Modi’s post, the presence and proliferation of deepfake content across various platforms of Meta, as well as the intermediary’s inaction on the issues raised by the Grievance Apellate Commitee (GAC), sources said. 

“They (Meta) agreed that there had been some gaps in their automated CSEAM monitoring and takedown systems and have agreed to further strengthen the number of people working on the issue. We have given them a list of issues that need to be worked on and will seek a response on the action taken in due course of time,” a senior government official, present in both the meetings of Wednesday, had said.