Two days after a video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taken down temporarily by Facebook, members of India’s parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology were notified of an impending meeting with Meta Platforms Inc., the social media platform’s parent company. The meeting was innocuously titled ‘Social and digital platforms and their regulation’. But the discussions that played out over two hours on Monday, 3 August were far from regular.
Although the committee represented a smorgasbord of political divisions, most of the lawmakers in attendance closed ranks to question Meta over the temporary removal of Modi’s Facebook video, according to seven officials and executives Mint spoke with. All of them requested anonymity since it was officially a closed-door meeting.
The stated agenda of the meeting was a briefing on social media operations by the Ministry of home affairs, ministry of electronics and IT (Meity), and significant social media intermediaries such as Meta (which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Google (which runs YouTube), X (formerly Twitter), and Snap (which runs Snapchat). The meeting was chaired by parliamentarian Nishikant Dubey, a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Set against the then-upcoming visit of Joel Kaplan, president of global affairs at Meta, the briefing sought to understand how social media algorithms worked, and other technical details such as filtering of abusive content including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), compliance with India’s intermediary rules, and user safety standards and measures on each of the platforms in attendance.
Most questions, however, revolved around the temporary removal of that one video and sporadically on other issues. The committee sought an apology from Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, and, importantly, raised a request for a blanket removal of safe harbour protection for Meta in India—a contentious warning that could have far-reaching implications for how internet intermediaries operate in India.
The video in question had been posted from the prime minister’s account on Facebook on 23 July addressing students who had staged one of the most significant protests in about a decade, over examination paper leaks. A controversy erupted when the video was suspended for about four hours and 30 minutes in the early hours of 28 July.
Meta has since apologised for and attributed the video’s suspension to an ‘error’.
‘Political unity’
Of the 23 committee members present at the 3 August meeting, 14 were from the BJP, including Dubey, Anil Baluni, Rabindra Narayan Behera, Anup Sanjay Dhotre, Poonamben Maadam, Kangna Ranaut, Radheshyam Rathiya, Arun Kumar Sagar, Vishnu Datt Sharma, Rajneesh Kumar Agrawal, Sanjay Bhatia, Amar Pal Maurya, Kanad Purkayastha and Lahar Singh Siroya.
Others in attendance included S. Supongmeren Jamir, Shafi Parambil, M.K. Vishnu Prasad and Christopher Manickam from the Indian National Congress, C.N. Annadurai (DMK), Devesh Shakya (Samajwadi Party), Rajesh Verma (Lok Janshakti Party), Bhashyam Rama Krishna (TDP) and independent member Kartikeya Sharma.
Seven panel members weren’t at the meeting.
“Opposition members made it clear that while they remain political opponents of Prime Minister Modi, the issue transcended party politics because Modi represents the country on the global stage,” one of the officials mentioned above said. This official added that while some members sought assurances from Meta others asked for “stronger safeguards” involving “constitutional authorities”.
In response to Mint’s emailed query about the 3 August meeting, Dubey said, “It’s a [breach of] privilege if I give you the details.” Under parliamentary privilege, discussions of a closed-door meeting cannot be revealed before they are made public.
A Meta spokesperson, in response to a detailed questionnaire sent to Meta on the parliamentary committee meeting and subsequent government engagements on the matter, pointed to a statement by Kaplan issued on 5 August: “I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi’s post.”
Meta did not comment on further points that were discussed with Meity, or whether there would be further such meetings.
Mint’s emails to all members in attendance seeking comment, as well as emails to the prime minister’s office, Meity, the secretary-general of the Lok Sabha, Google, YouTube, X and Snap did not receive responses.
The standing committee on communications and information technology said in response to Mint’s queries that proceedings of a parliamentary committee are confidential and cannot be shared.
Safe harbour discussions
A key point of contention following the meeting lies in the parliamentary committee’s claim that Meta stood to lose safe harbour protection in India if it suspends content such as Modi’s video.
Under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, social media and other online intermediaries operating in India are not legally responsible for third-party content hosted on their platforms, so long as they follow due diligence rules and remove illegal content following a government order or notice.
N.S. Nappinai, senior counsel at the Supreme Court and founder of cyber safety advocacy platform Cyber Saathi, said safe harbour protections “are exemptions accruing to the benefit of all intermediaries, provided they fall within the categories provided—and comply with the Centre’s guidelines”.
“One intermediary such as Meta faces no threat of losing such blanket safe harbour protections. Only if it fails to comply with India’s intermediary rules for identified violative content would it lose safe harbour protection for that specific violation—and would then be liable to be prosecuted as an accomplice along with the perpetrators of crimes on its platforms,” Nappinai said.
Not all parties within the government bandied Meta’s legally afforded safe harbour immunity as a threat against the company. On 6 August, a senior Meity official said Meta’s explanation of why the video was momentarily taken down was “satisfactory”. The official further underlined that “the executive [arm of the government] will not be the party to take a decision on whether safe harbour immunity will hold for Meta—that decision solely rests with the judiciary”.
Nappinai added that Meta can be prosecuted if “advertisements it has carried with CSAM are proven to be with Meta’s knowledge—or if it fails to take these down despite knowledge thereof”. However, as per India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (known simply as IT Rules), a company would not entirely lose legal immunity if it is prosecuted for user content that violates the law.
Pavan Duggal, senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India, said safe-harbour protections afforded to platforms under India’s IT Act and Rules get automatically withdrawn “the moment they do not comply with the IT Act and its rules, and fail to exercise due diligence—or the moment they conspire or abet in the commission of any offence. That is not dependent on any three-day clause that was claimed through last week”.
“Section 79 of the IT Act, which details the key clauses that a company has to maintain in order to gain safe harbour protection, clearly details the statutory requirements that the platform has to maintain at all times. Apology does not find mention under the IT Act and does not help restore the statutory exemption safe harbour protection already lost, due to acts and omissions on behalf of the intermediary,” Duggal added.
Rohit Kumar, founding partner at public policy firm The Quantum Hub (TQH), added that in the singular case of the temporary video suspension, “the key clause that would define applicability of liability for Meta is grievance redressal”.
“There is no doubt that the suspension of the PM’s video is extremely concerning. However, the question is whether this was intentional or systematic, or simply a technical error. Given that Meta restored the video within a few hours and subsequently indicated that the suspension was the result of a technical error, on primary grounds this does not appear to be a breach of India’s social media intermediary laws and policies.”
Kumar further added that creating a separate policy regime for a head of state or other key personalities is difficult to operationalise in a principled and consistent manner. “How would you define ‘key personalities’, and where would you draw the line? If the head of state is to be treated as an exceptional figure, would that extend to the leader of the opposition, other prominent political figures, or even journalists?”
This is not the first time that a significant social media intermediary was questioned over content on its platform, or threatened with removal of safe harbour immunity. On 4 January, Mint reported that officials of X in India were summoned by Meity over sexually explicit content on its platform generated by its own AI engine, Grok.
Between 16 and 22 June, Meity also issued a blocking order against encrypted mass messaging platform Telegram, stating the ban to prevent leaks of examination questions. The ban drew widespread criticism for how it could be easily circumvented.
The Meta meeting
At the parliamentary committee’s 3 August meeting, Meta was also questioned about its miscellaneous business practices and compliance with Indian laws.
One of the officials Mint spoke with said a panel member cited examples from his iron and steel businesses to highlight revenue Meta earned in India, and underlining that the company was bound to comply with India’s laws. In response, Meta executives in attendance pointed to the taxes the company pays in India.
A second member showed a morphed video that had been in circulation for several months and had not been taken down, questioning the efficacy of Meta’s content moderation algorithms, according to the official.
For the most part, representatives of other companies including Google’s YouTube waited for their turn, a third official said. However, concerns around privacy and data breaches were directed at the all company executives in attendance.
Another issue directed at the companies was “accountability”. A fourth official told Mint that members warned that “if platforms could remove content featuring a head of state at their discretion, they could similarly take down anyone’s content without adequate justification. Tomorrow, they may remove videos of our leaders. Accountability has to be fixed”.
Congress’s Manickam, who was in attendance, told Mint that Meta’s explanation for removing Modi’s video “was not satisfactory”. The Congress is the principal opposition party in Parliament.
“There was no clarity on why the video was removed. If there was something offensive in the video, they should clearly state what it was. If there were other reasons, those should also be explained. But the reasons given appeared flimsy. If there is a valid reason, obviously it should be considered seriously. But the company needs to provide a convincing explanation for the removal,” he said, without divulging details of the committee’s deliberations.
Manickam, however, underlined that discussions with Meta and other platforms should not be limited to the removal of one video, and raised concerns over broader regulation of social media platforms.
“We cannot only talk about the prime minister’s video; we have to use this opportunity to look at the overall ecosystem and determine how to approach the issue, because social media is new,” he said.
Baijayant Panda, a BJP member of Parliament and chairperson of the committee on public undertakings, said social media platforms should take responsibility for the editorial decisions they make, just as newspapers and other media organisations are accountable for the content they publish.
“If social media platforms want to exercise editorial control over their content, they must also take responsibility for those decisions and be prepared to face the law of the land,” Panda told Mint.
Kaplan’s two-day visit
Meta, three executives and officials said, was represented at the parliamentary committee meeting by a two-member India public policy team—Aman Jain, senior director and head of public policy for India, and Natasha Jog, director of public policy programmes at Meta India.
“The parliamentary committee meeting was a closed-door industry gathering that also had representations from Google, YouTube, Snap and X, among others. During the meeting, Meta representatives explained how their content recommendation and moderation algorithms worked, and answered questions on algorithmic bias, safety filters, community standards and other technical platform details. The same was done by all other major platforms in attendance,” one of the executives said.
“The key takeaway from the meeting, which took place prior to Kaplan’s India visit, was that all intermediaries must follow and fulfil all due sectoral regulations in India, but there were no platform-specific apologies or risks to safe-harbour protection discussed,” the executive added.
Another executive said Kaplan had two separate meetings with Union information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Meity secretary S. Krishnan on 5 and 6 August.
“Kaplan conveyed an apology from [Meta’s] global chief Mark Zuckerberg, and admitted that the video removal involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi was due to an algorithmic error—which Meta committed to rectify,” the executive said.
A senior official affiliated with Meity added that questions posed to Kaplan revolved around “how Meta’s algorithms work, what are the safeguards against biases and harms that they have put in place, and if Meta’s measures are enough for them to comply with the law of our land”.
“The Centre’s intention is to ensure that Meta’s India operations follow India’s parliamentary and constitutional frameworks and not operate as per US and EU regulations. This is the crux of the discussions that Meity has held with Kaplan,” this official said. “We’re looking to ensure that Meta’s algorithms follow India’s IT Rules while keeping in mind other provisions such as Article 19 of the Constitution of India, which offers freedom of speech as a fundamental right.”
Both the second executive and the Meity-affiliated official said that while Kaplan left India on 7 August, discussions continued for “another three or four days” on algorithmic operations of social media intermediaries, and if companies take adequate steps to keep up with the law.
Two days after Meta’s representation before the parliamentary committee, on 5 August, Dubey addressed a letter to Meta from the Lok Sabha Secretariat offering Zuckerberg “three days” to issue an apology to the Indian government. The letter stated that the committee had recommended blanket removal of Meta’s safe harbour protection in India.
One of the two executives cited above said there was no discussion between Meta and the government on changing the company’s content recommendation or moderation algorithms in India, or on Meta accepting payments to censor specific content—which multiple recent reports have claimed. Removal of safe harbour, too, was not discussed between Kaplan and Vaishnaw, the executive said.
The second executive too said there had been no discussions on safe harbour immunity between Meta and Vaishnaw. “That’s not how the law works, and that’s not what happened either,” the executive said. “The team from Meta has now returned to Menlo Park (where Facebook is headquartered), but have taken actionable notes that the executive leadership will now evaluate and implement within the ambit of Meta’s policies and India’s laws.”