PM video row: Meta apologises, House panel wants to hear it from Zuckerberg

Officials were said to have flagged various issues concerning Meta, including the presence of advertisements of child sexual abuse material on its platforms, the usernames issue on WhatsApp, and Meta’s long backlog of unaddressed user grievances, apart from the removal of the PM’s video.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has given Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a three-day ultimatum to apologise for the removal of the PM’s video. The Lok Sabha secretariat told the government that if Zuckerberg does not apologise, the protection to Meta platforms under the IT Act may be withdrawn and he may face action.

RECAP | ‘Apologise for blocking PM video or lose cover’: Zuckerberg gets 3 days

A letter from A Jyothirmayi, Director of the Lok Sabha, to S Krishnan, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics & IT, referred to the August 3 meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee with representatives of the ministries of Home Affairs, Electronics and Information Technology, and social media platforms, including Meta, which runs Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.

“The removal of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s video addressing students and Gen Z regarding examination controversies and strict actions against paper leaks from Facebook for 5-6 hours (was) viewed very seriously by the Committee. During the deliberations, the Committee demanded an apology from Mr Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Chief, on this issue,” the letter stated.

“If he fails to tender an unqualified apology within 3 days of receipt of this letter, the protection/immunity given under Section 79(3) of IT Act may be withdrawn and action taken against him as a Publisher,” it stated. Section 79(3) of the Act lists exceptions in which online platforms lose legal immunity for third-party content.

The committee has also demanded action against platforms that carry material linked to child sexual abuse and demeaning women. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey leads the House panel on IT. Earlier, Dubey had said that the mindset behind the removal of the PM’s video was “to destabilise the country”. “When the video of the Prime Minister of India can be removed, and they themselves accepted that it was unavailable for five hours between 12:30 am and 5 am… this is a very serious thing and our committee has said two things clearly – that this apology should come from Zuckerberg himself,” he said.

During Wednesday’s meetings, the government also flagged that when Meta’s automated systems take action on content or account of a prominent personality, it should be further reviewed by senior executives in the company.

Government officials were said to have told Meta executives that being an intermediary, Meta’s social media platforms were required to follow government directives, and comply with Indian laws around harmful and illegal content, in order to retain the legal immunity they enjoy from hosting user generated content.

Child sexual abuse material, and related promotional content, on Instagram was also flagged as a major redline during the meeting. Meta executives are understood to have assured the government that the company was strengthening its systems around the detection of such content, but cautioned that some pieces of content could fall through the cracks.

IT Ministry officials are learnt to have flagged that Meta has a backlog of more than 9,000 cases where it has not resolved user grievances, despite those being raised by a dedicated adjudicatory panel, called the Grievance Appellate Committee, at the IT Ministry. Meta is learnt to have conveyed that they had addressed a bulk of those grievances, and less than 100 cases were pending.

Meta is also learnt to have reiterated its assurance to the government that it will not roll out the usernames feature on WhatsApp until it can address all of the government’s concerns.