Indian govt, Meta to hold another round of talks this week to review progress on content, safety issues

Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised to the Indian government for briefly restricting Narendra Modi’s video post on Facebook. After three consecutive days of meetings with Meta’s global team, the government has sought greater accountability from the social media giant. 

Now, the IT Ministry officials are said to meet the Meta team again this week to assess the progress it has made on key concerns, including the reappearance of harmful content and the handling of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as per a PTI report.

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A technical round of discussions was held on Friday, during which Meta provided details on their plan to prevent deepfakes, CSAM, and synthetically generated content that is not appropriately labelled on its platforms. The government has asked Meta to take specific measures and report back on the outcomes.

Meta details plans to tackle deepfakes, CSAM

Last week’s discussions involved Meta’s global team, led by Global Affairs head Joel Kaplan. On Wednesday and Thursday, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw questioned the team over the company’s content recommendation algorithms and compliance with Indian laws. On Friday, the social media team addressed the government’s concerns and provided a plan. 

Meta also acknowledged that there are “serious issues” and assured the Centre that it would take continuous action to resolve them. The company further explained how its content moderation systems work and proposed solutions to tackle the issues.

Must read: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg apologises for child abuse material, deepfakes, content boosting: Sources

Centre flagged reappearance of harmful AI content

Despite Meta's efforts, the government flagged the reappearance and continued circulation of AI-generated harmful content. It has also questioned the appropriate labels on AI content, despite IT rules requiring synthetically generated content to be identified and labelled.

Now, the centre has demands for greater human oversight of content moderation, along with stronger awareness of Indian languages and local cultural and contextual nuances.

Now it is expected that the govt will continue pressing Meta for strict measures and improvements, with the upcoming meeting set to provide an early assessment of whether the company has acted on the concerns raised during last week’s discussions.