New Delhi: Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of American technology giant Meta, is asked to personally apologies from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the removal of his video from the platform.
Modi's video recorded to address the protesting students in the national capital was removed from from his Facebook page on July 28,2026. The video was restored on his handle after five hours, from 12:30 PM to 5 PM. The platform has cited technical glitch behind the removal of Modi's video.
Soon after the incident, a Parliamentary Standing Committee summoned Meta which is being headed by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey.
The committee said that the incident was a serious matter and called for greater accountability and transparency for the company.
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Dube has told Meta that CEO Mark Zuckerberg should personally apologise for the incident, describing the temporary removal of the Prime Minister's video as a very serious matter.
He went on to say that if such an apology is not made, the government should consider reviewing Meta's safe harbour protection
under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, which shields digital platforms from liability for third-party content under certain conditions.
The meet was called after Facebook temporarily removed a post by Prime Minister Modi related to action against paper leaks on 23rd of July.
Meta had earlier attributed the incident to a technical glitch, had apologised and restored the post, but the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology described the explanation as inadequate.
According to media reports, the Parliamentary Panel has asked Meta to submit a detailed written response within 10 days' time.
During the meeting, BJP members even questioned Meta representatives about who authorised in the first place the removal of the video and raised concerns about alleged algorithmic bias on the platform.
Meta representatives also expressed regret over the incident and indicated that they were prepared to apologise before the committee.
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The meeting formed part of Parliamentary Committee's wider review of the regulation of digital platforms, with officials from Google X, YouTube Snapchat, the Home Ministry and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology were also part of the discussion.
The discussion was centred around three subjects and those were the takedown of the Modi video, foreign links of platforms during the CJB protest and the algorithmic amplification of content on social media platform.
In fact, a demand for a law to govern deepfakes and content generated by artificial intelligence was also raised in the meeting, according to the media reports.
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