Meta has apologised to the Modi government for taking down a real PM Modi mate for his Gen Z friends. But at the same time, Meta is taking down several other posts on Instagram, including some of ours, without even any explanation, forget an apology.
“Meta removing PM Modi's video is an attack on our democracy as PM Modi represents 1.4 billion Indians.”
Meta has apologised to the Modi government for taking down a real PM Modi mate for his Gen Z friends. But at the same time, Meta is taking down several other posts on Instagram, including some of ours, without even any explanation, forget an apology. Let me tell you both stories in just two minutes. First, the government's case with Meta. So, BJP MP Nishikanth Dubey, who heads the Parliamentary Committee of Commissions and IT, gave Meta a three-day ultimatum on Wednesday. He said that Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to apologise, or a case may be filed against Meta for the brief removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video. Now, the video in question is the first reel that PM Modi had made to reach out to the Gen Z's protesting at Jantar Mantar led by the CGP. This video was posted two days before Dharmendra Pradhan resigned and the protest ended. Now, Nishikanth Dubey warned Meta that if it does not apologize for restricting this video for five hours, then the safe harbor status that the company enjoys currently in India from the government will be taken away. The safe harbor provision in the IT Act basically protects intermediaries like Meta from facing legal action for content that's posted by other users. Now, Nishikanth Dubey said that Meta removing PM Modi's video is an attack on our democracy as PM Modi represents 1.4 billion Indians. Mehta has said that this post's temporary removal was just a technical error and senior leaders from Mehta's global team were summoned by government officials and MPs on Wednesday. And after that meeting with the government, Mehta's chief global affairs officer apologized on behalf of his company But that not where the government concerns end Nishikanth Dubey has also alleged that social media platforms like Meta are promoting anti and anti content over the content of national parties and national issues He had numbers for this. He said that in the past one week, the Kakarujanta Party's handles got 30 million views, the BJP got 10 million views, while the Congress got 15 million views. Now, on this concern, Meta officially has not said anything, but certain news organizations are reporting that Meta has confirmed that it took money to boost certain type of content. Though, again, this claim is not mentioned in the official statement Mehta is released. So we don't know whether Mehta actually said that. But now that the government's concerns with Mehta seem to be settled for now, let's come to the next part, the takedowns. Just yesterday, a video we posted from Jharkhand's students' protest that spoke about the Delhi police action on CGP volunteer Junaid was taken down twice within minutes of posting. And no reason given. Instagram simply said that this was done to follow a local legal requirement under the government's IT Act. This week itself, in the same way, our interview with a female CGP protester who's facing online abuse was taken down by Instagram twice. And not just us, but several social media users are reporting takedowns of content that is about the CGP protest or that's even remotely critical of the government. So, while Meta has apologised to the government for a takedown, many of the platform's other users don't have any answers for why their content is being restricted in a similar way. Tell us what you think in the comments and do follow PTV for more such honest journalism every day.
