Meta in more trouble with govt? IT Minister summons company over Instagram ads promoting child sexual abuse: Report

US tech giant Meta is reportedly in more hot water with the Centre, with Union Information Technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw directing officials to summon the company over Instagram advertisements allegedly promoting child sexual abuse material, according to a PTI report citing sources.

They added that the ministry is seeking an explanation from Meta on the issue.

Meta in more trouble with Indian govt?

This is the second instance this week when the government has turned up the heat on Meta.

According to an ANI report today citing sources, representatives from the company met with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) officials to discuss the Centre's notice over WhatsApp's proposed usernames feature.

Officials apprised Meta of the government's concerns regarding the feature and gave the company three days to furnish a detailed explanation, they added.

On 1 July, the government issued a notice questioning the company's planned rollout of its username feature on WhatsApp, citing concerns that it could materially increase online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams, and impersonation attacks.

It directed the platform to pause the feature until consultations on the issue are completed "to the satisfaction of the Government".

The Centre had also asked Meta to explain why action shouldn't be initiated under the IT Act and rules over WhatsApp's new feature that may increase cybercrimes.

The government also reminded Meta that WhatsApp, as a significant social media intermediary, is bound by due diligence obligations under the IT Act and rules.

India is moving to dedicated regulatory framework for AI

IT Secretary S Krishnan today told reporters that the ministry is looking at a dedicated regulatory framework for artificial intelligence (AI), according to another PTI report. He added that while existing legal provisions have served to address initial concerns on deepfakes and AI-generated synthetic content, an “additional regulation or law may be needed”.

“It is a conversation which has commenced, and my Minister (Vaishnaw) and I have both been on record earlier that we will look at AI regulation when the time is right, and it appears that the time is getting right, and we will start looking at it. We have used the IT rules and other provisions of existing law to address various concerns that AI raises, but now, probably the time has come to look at a separate legislation,” Krishnan said.

The secretary did not have a timeline for the final legislation.

Notably, Vaishnaw, in an interview with PTI in June, said that current IT laws were framed well before AI entered consideration, and that a new legal framework may be needed to address the changing landscape. He had said that discussions were on with the industry and that the government will seek to strike a balance between innovation and regulation.

What has the government done so far?

• In February, the Centre imposed stricter obligations for online platforms on handling AI-generated and synthetic content, including deepfakes, saying platforms, such as X and Instagram, must take down within three hours any such content flagged by a competent authority or court.

• It notified amendments to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, that formally define AI-generated and synthetic content.
• The amendments defined “audio, visual or audio-visual information” and “synthetically generated information”, covering AI-created or altered content that appears authentic. Routine editing, accessibility improvements, and good-faith educational or design work have been excluded from this definition.
• The Centre has also mooted stricter disclosure norms for AI-generated content, proposing tweaks to IT rules that would require clear and continuous labels identifying synthetically generated information to be visible throughout the entire duration of the visual display.

(With inputs from PTI, ANI)