New Delhi: The head of the department-related standing committee on information technology, Nishikant Dubey, Monday said Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg should personally apologise for the removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s video from Facebook, while several other members demanded legal action after fixing accountability.
However, according to sources, Opposition MPs in the panel said that space for dissent in social media is a must and “anti-government” content should not be considered “anti-national”. At the committee meeting, Dubey said the removal of the Prime Minister’s video from Facebook was either a serious failure of the system or there “is a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the prime minister” on the part of Meta and Instagram. He also said that if this is how Meta deals with the official post of the prime minister, then what can the common people of India expect. He stressed that this “failure cannot be dismissed merely as a technical error”. “They (Meta) themselves admitted that it (video) was taken down for five hours — missing from 12:30 at night to 5:00 in the morning. “This is a very serious matter and an apology must come from Zuckerberg’s side,” Dubey said after an over three-hour meeting of the parliamentary panel during which the MPs questioned the Meta representatives.
And if Zuckerberg does not apologise, then the safe harbour protection they have under Section 79 should be taken back from them, the BJP MP said, referring to the provision of the Information Technology Act under which social media networks and internet service providers are not legally responsible for third-party content on their platforms. The questioning came against the backdrop of the government’s summons to Meta’s top executives after Prime Minister Modi’s recent Facebook post addressing India’s youth and promising stringent action against paper leaks was briefly restricted on the platform.
According to the sources, META officials expressed regret over the incident before the panel and stated they were ready to apologise. However, a BJP MP remarked that this isn’t just about offering an apology. Accountability must be fixed, and legal action should be taken in this matter, the member asserted. The parliamentary panel asked Meta to clarify its stand in writing within 10 days. Dubey said that this was not the first time that Meta has removed a video. “In 2024, Mark Zuckerberg had made objectionable comments on Parliamentary election results. Their mindset is to destabilise the country,” he alleged. He said that social media platforms don’t listen to the directives of the Ministries of Home Affairs and IT.
Earlier, addressing the panel, Dubey said temporary removal of the Prime Minister’s official Facebook post regarding the NEET examination is a “highly serious” issue, and the committee wanted to know “why was the post removed”. Dubey said Meta should provide the complete audit trail from “report to restoration” of the PM’s video and asked why the reasons for account-level enforcement were not disclosed publicly.
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