Former Delhi Chief Minister and AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday that his Facebook account has been restricted in India.
In a post on X, Kejriwal tagged Meta and Meta India, asking the company, “Why have you restricted my account? Verbal enquiries at your India office revealed that my account has been restricted in India and is unavailable in India. Why? No one in your office is giving any reasons. No one is suggesting how restrictions can be removed. All emails written have elicited no response other than routine acknowledgement.”
“Thats pretty bad service,” he also said, adding, “Don’t bow down to our Prime Minister so much. Else he will allow u to run only his own account in India.”
Kejriwal also shared a screenshot of his account status page showing the message, “Unavailable in some locations”.
However, now both his Facebook and Instagram accounts are showing up as usual in India, Livemint can confirm.
Kejriwal's allegations against the tech giant come in the backdrop of heightened scrutiny of the company in India.
Meta is facing a probe over alleged advertisements on Instagram related to Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) following a media report. The company has acknowledged that the content in question was promoted on the platform and that paid promotions for it were run for certain audiences, as per ANI, citing sources in the know.
ANI also reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had apologised to the central government over Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), deepfake content and operational errors on the platform.
“Mark Zuckerberg sent his apologies for the CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) content, deepfake content and errors in operating the platform. It was made clear to them that they are not covered under the Intermediary definition. They select who receives the content. Safe harbour under IT Act not applicable,” ANI quoted a source as saying.
Senior officials of the company were summoned by India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) after the company blocked a reel shared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which it later said was due to a technical glitch.
On Wednesday, a Meta delegation led by the company's Chief Global Affairs Officer, Joel Kaplan, met MeitY Secretary S Krishnan and explained the reasons why Modi's video was taken down.
The meeting came in the wake of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology demanding an apology from Zuckerberg over the Modi video row.
(With agency inputs)
