Zuckerberg conveys ‘apologies’ for child sex abuse material, errors in operating the platform, government sources say

Meta's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized to Indian officials for the presence of child sexual abuse material, deepfake content, and errors in the company's operations, government sources reported on August 5, 2026. Zuckerberg's remarks came after Meta's global head of public policy, Joel Kaplan, met with officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The delegation also met with the Information Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, to discuss why Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initial video message to the youth, posted on July 23, was temporarily removed from Facebook. Zuckerberg had previously attributed the removal to an error. The government insisted on a full explanation of the error and a personal apology from Zuckerberg.

The informal readout of the meeting did not explicitly mention the takedown of Modi's post. Zuckerberg apologized to the Minister on behalf of Meta, stating that the company had removed the post due to an error. The meetings followed heightened concerns over Instagram's role in spreading protests at Jantar Mantar and the brief removal of Modi's post on Facebook.

Government officials argued that Meta was not covered under the Intermediary definition, making it exempt from liability under the IT Act. They also criticized Meta for promoting child sexual abuse content on Instagram, which had been paid for and targeted towards specific audiences. Earlier, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology had demanded that Google India's safe harbor be removed, making the company liable for individual users' posts as a publisher.

The committee cited cybercrime complaints and the brief takedown of Modi's video as reasons for the demand. The IT Ministry and Meta did not immediately respond to queries about the Parliamentary Standing Committee's letter.