ETtech Explainer: Why Meta's Zuckerberg may have to publicly bend the knee in India
A parliamentary panel has sought an apology from Zuckerberg over the removal of PM Modi's Facebook post, warning that immunity could be withdrawn if he refused. Sources told ET that during the meeting with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) officials on Wednesday, Kaplan conveyed apologies from Zuckerberg.
Meta executives, including Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg, faced questioning by Indian government officials for two consecutive days to address compliance issues and concerns related to Instagram's content recommendation algorithms. The company apologized for its mistakes and acknowledged the issues raised by the government. The second round of questioning occurred after Meta restricted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's post, which promised action against examination paper leaks, preventing its availability for around five hours.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee threatened to withdraw Meta's safe harbour protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act if CEO Zuckerberg did not apologize within three days. During their meeting, Kaplan conveyed apologies from Zuckerberg, but no public statement has been issued yet. The government's discussions with Meta extended to issues such as deepfakes, child sexual abuse material, safeguards for verified accounts, algorithmic bias, and compliance with Indian laws.
WhatsApp, another global messaging platform, is also expected to be discussed in the coming days following a notice sent by the Centre over the rollout of its Username feature, which raised concerns about impersonation and fraud. Meta's technical team is set to meet MeitY officials on Friday, and the company's global team is anticipated to remain in India for additional meetings over the next few days.
Written by urgent.news from Economic Times Tech's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
