The Centre has shifted to technical discussions with Meta after two days of intensive questioning, with the social media giant detailing how it plans to address government concerns over deepfakes, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and unlabelled synthetically-generated content on its platforms, according to PTI sources. The government has asked Meta to take specific measures and report back on the outcomes, with officials planning to regularly follow up with the company on its progress. **The government is also examining whether Meta continues to qualify as an "intermediary" under Indian law, particularly given the role of its recommendation systems in deciding what content users see, as reported by Business Standard. One of the key issues discussed was the reappearance, continued circulation and virality of AI-generated harmful content, even after it has been flagged. The government asked Meta to have greater human oversight in content moderation, with enhanced awareness and understanding of Indian languages, as well as local nuances. Another meeting is expected to be held in the coming week, the sources said, as the government continues to press the company to undertake sustained measures to address various concerns.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has personally apologised for the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), deepfake content and lapses in the platform's operations during the company's global team meeting with IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, as reported by PTI. Meta's chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan formally apologized to the government for the erroneous takedown of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video, stating in a post-meeting statement that "I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi's post." The 20-minute meeting between Vaishnaw and Kaplan included Meta's team explaining the reasons behind the inadvertent takedown, with Kaplan accompanied by Neil Potts, vice-president of public policy, Rafael Frankel, head of Asia Pacific public policy, and Aman Jain, head of public policy, India. Meta's team also assured the government that going forward, the company would be "extremely careful" when dealing with posts by prominent personalities with verified accounts.
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, according to sources familiar with the matter. A senior government official stated that "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." The government is considering seeking a legal opinion on further action against Meta after assessing the outcome of its recent meetings, as reported by Business Standard. The review could subsequently be expanded to other digital platforms to assess whether their recommendation systems and content practices comply with the legal requirements for intermediary status.
Meta explained that PM Modi's post was inadvertently flagged by Meta's internal artificial intelligence (AI) systems as a deepfake post owing to the sudden surge in the number of visitors to the post, according to sources present at the meeting. While it was taken down in error, the post was quickly restored after the video was briefly unavailable. The video was originally posted on July 23 and marked Prime Minister Modi's first direct address to Gen Z amid a 36-day student agitation led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG 2026 examination. Meta had informed the IT Ministry that posts by the prime minister and select prominent accounts will be subject to additional oversight on the platform, with multiple levels of checks involving senior company officials. However, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) termed Meta's explanation "inadequate".
Government officials pressed major social media companies to align their content moderation practices with the country's legal framework, raising concerns over arbitrary takedowns while maintaining that the government's objective is regulatory compliance, not limits on free speech, according to Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sources. The government made it clear that platforms operating in India must ensure compliance with the country's legal framework while maintaining transparency in their moderation processes. At the heart of the government's scrutiny is the role of recommendation algorithms, which determine the content shown to individual users and could have a bearing on the legal protections available to platforms, as reported by Business Standard. Representatives of Meta and other platforms told the government that they have robust content moderation mechanisms, including automated detection tools, human review systems and fact-checking processes, according to MeitY sources. "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," a senior government official present in both Wednesday meetings said.
