India gives Zuckerberg three days to apologize over Modi video removal

An Indian parliamentary committee has given Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg three days to apologize for the temporary removal of a video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Facebook, according to PTI.

The demand was included in a letter to the secretary of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, signed by A. Jyothirmayi, director of the Lok Sabha Secretariat. The committee said it had taken the incident “very seriously” after Modi's address to students and Gen Z over an exam controversy and measures to prevent question paper leaks was unavailable on Facebook for five to six hours.

If Zuckerberg does not issue an unconditional apology within three days of receiving the letter, the committee has proposed withdrawing Meta's protection under Section 79(3) of India's Information Technology Act and holding the CEO liable as a publisher. The provision shields online platforms from liability for content posted by their users.

Meta said the video was removed because of a technical error and apologized, adding that the post had since been restored. India's IT ministry said the explanation was insufficient.

Committee chairman Nishikant Dubey said lawmakers wanted to establish why the prime minister's official post had been removed.

“Either there is a serious failure of the system or there is a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the PM of our country on the part of Meta and Instagram. If this is the way Meta deals with the official post of the PM, what to speak of the post of the common man of our country. Such a failure cannot be dismissed merely as a technical error,” Dubey said.

Dubey said this was not the first time Meta had removed videos and accused platforms of failing to follow instructions from the relevant ministries.

In the same letter, the committee called for action under Section 79(3) against platforms that fail to remove material involving child sexual abuse and content degrading women. Lawmakers also asked the government to take action against the head of Google India, who has been named as a co-accused by Hyderabad cyber police in a case involving fraudulent investment apps that allegedly caused losses of more than 4.8 million rupees.

The letter was sent two days after an August 3 committee hearing on the regulation of social and digital platforms. Representatives from Snapchat, Google, X, Meta and YouTube attended alongside officials from India's home and IT ministries.

Modi published the video on July 23, marking his first direct address to young people amid 36 days of student protests over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG exam.

After the video was removed and subsequently restored, India's IT ministry summoned Meta's head of global public policy to discuss the incident.