Indian govt summons Meta global team on August 5-6 over content moderation: IT Secretary S Krishnan

The Indian government will reportedly meet Meta's global team on August 5 and 6 to discuss its content moderation practices, lapse in handling of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and instances of wrongful action against prominent accounts.

According to inputs by PTI, IT Secretary S Krishnan confirmed that the government has summoned Meta's global representatives for issues, highlighting that a major technology company like Meta, which is at the forefront of the tech industry, should have systems that function properly and prevent such mistakes.

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"There are a range of issues...the CSAM issue was raised, so what measures have been taken regarding that, and synthetically generated information... to what extent that is being looked at. Then, of course, for prominent personalities, when they have verified accounts, if content has to be taken down, there have to be safeguards...all of these will be the issues," Krishnan said.

"We would like to understand from them (Meta) as to why some of these things have not been working the way they are supposed to work, and what are the challenges," Krishnan added.

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The meeting will be between the Indian government and Meta's global executives, and it comes amid the recent controversy involving a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Facebook. Now, the government is seeking explanations from Meta about the post removal and its content moderation systems.

This incident has increased scrutiny of Meta's platform policies, especially around content removal, automated moderation, and accountability of big technology companies. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology also stated that Meta's explanation was insufficient.

Now, the social media giant has also expressed regret over the brief removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video from Facebook and is willing to issue an apology, sources told India Today on Monday.