The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday summoned Meta’s global head of public policy after a video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefly taken down, ANI reported.
Secretary S Krishnan told the news agency that the company contended it happened because of a “technical error” but said that the reasoning was not “acceptable in its entirety”.
On Thursday, the prime minister posted a late-night video message on social media assuring strict action on cases of paper leaks in competitive examinations, amid nationwide youth protests over irregularities in the process.
However, on Tuesday morning, the video was briefly unavailable, Economic Times Tech reported.
Users in India saw a notice that access had been withheld in the region following a legal request.
“The content was removed in error and has since been restored,” PTI quoted an unidentified Meta spokesperson as saying.
Krishnan told ANI that the removal of authorised content was “extremely disturbing” and should not be repeated.
He added that the social media platform’s apology was a “good step” but maintained that it was not satisfactory.
“What was done was wrong,” the secretary said, adding that the ministry has sought further details from the platform.
“We will follow this up to see that there are systemic corrections to ensure that such instances do not recur,” he said
The development follows a direction from the Delhi Police to social media platforms to remove posts and videos with remarks targeting Modi during the nationwide protests.
At least 450 posts were identified by the police’s social media monitoring team that shared alleged deepfake videos and content generated using artificial intelligence during the protests.
The content was posted online during the youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign to demand the resignation of Pradhan over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.
On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators.
The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country and forced Pradhan to resign on Saturday.
Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.
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