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arliamentary standing committee rejected the apology offered by Meta after the video in which PM Narendra Modi spoke against the leakage of exam papers was briefly removed from Facebook, stating that the firm had to address responsibility issues and legal actions had to follow.
In the latest incident in the ongoing clash with India's Parliament, company executives of Meta faced grilling regarding the removal of a video in which Indian PM Narendra Modi had addressed the students and talked about the need for strict action on the issue of leakage of examination papers.
When the executives apologized for this issue, it only added more fuel to fire because of certain members in the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology.
The entire issue is related to a video in which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had talked about strict action required in case of leakage of examination papers. However, this video was removed for a few hours from Facebook.
When this issue was raised to Meta Company's executives at the Parliament committee, they had cited an internal mistake for this problem.
But it did not work well because one prominent Member of Parliament had asked for the responsibility of this firm and stated that those who have been responsible for such issues had to be penalized through law.
The meeting, held under the chairmanship of BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, was convened to discuss the larger topic of "Social and Digital Platforms and their regulation". Apart from representatives of Meta - covering Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, officials of other platforms like Snapchat, Google, X (former Twitter) and YouTube were also there.
Other important government officers like Home Secretary Govind Mohan and MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) officials were also attending the hearing.
Apart from the Modi video case, various questions were asked in the committee by its members about how these platforms were handling Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and other objectionable contents spreading on their platform.
There were also questions directed at the Meta representatives asking what sort of enforcement Meta did to curb the spread of such contents.
Thus apart from a single instance, the committee was trying to find out more about the ability of these platforms to regulate themselves in India.
Significantly, some committee members also raised questions regarding algorithmic biases and influence of content moderation system on public debate and ordering of discourse, which had reportedly led the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to summon the global teams of Meta some weeks prior to this committee hearing.
This is not the first time when Meta is being asked explanations by Indian parliamentarians. The Dubey committee too has adopted an increasingly assertive tone towards global tech companies of late. For example in the early part of this year, the same committee tried to summon Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg after the latter made a controversial statement on his podcast, saying that most incumbent governments including the current government in India had lost the general elections after the Coronavirus pandemic.
The statement was considered factually incorrect by the Indian government. This case resulted in immediate apology of the senior representative of Meta India. The committee was satisfied with the latter's reply as a solution.
But this time things have not ended with an apology only from Meta side as committee members clearly understand the difference between an apology and an answer to their questions.
The incident comes at a very delicate time for Meta. Besides facing increased scrutiny on content moderation, misinformation, its algorithmic practices and its algorithmic systems in the country, the firm finds itself in repeated confrontations with a combative parliamentary committee, thus adding even more significance to the way it is going to manage its engagement with regulators in one of its most significant markets.
For Indian parliamentarians, the case provides one more element of their long-standing position that foreign tech companies should face more accountability tools and legal repercussions as opposed to being able to settle such cases with public apologies only.
