Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan has apologised to India’s information technology minister for briefly restricting a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July. Kaplan confirmed the apology in an official statement, days after the incident triggered a formal summons from the Indian government. Kaplan said the outreach to the ministry was made specifically to address the lapse. “I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi’s post,” he reportedly said. The company has maintained that the restriction was not intentional, stating that the post had been blocked inadvertently because of an operational error. The episode dates back to last month, when India’s information and technology ministry summoned Meta executives after Facebook briefly restricted a post by Modi. The ministry’s decision to call in company representatives signalled the seriousness with which New Delhi treated the takedown, even though Meta attributed it to a technical mistake rather than a policy decision.
Hyderabad police case against Meta India head
The apology comes even as Meta India head Arun Srinivas faces separate legal trouble. Police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad have registered a case against Srinivas over videos posted on Facebook that allegedly depicted Modi in an “abusive manner.” The videos spread as Modi contended with the biggest wave of youth-led protests India has seen in more than a decade, protests that stemmed from leaked papers in national examinations and led to the resignation of the country’s education minister. The Hyderabad case adds to a run of friction between Meta and the Modi government over content concerning the prime minister, with Modi facing sustained online criticism, jokes and ridicule from protesters in recent weeks.
Zuckerberg’s separate apology over CSAM and deepfakes
In a parallel development on the same day, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised to the Indian government over child sexual abuse material, deepfake content and other operational lapses on the company’s platforms, according to local media reports. Zuckerberg’s apology was reportedly conveyed during a meeting between Meta executives and Indian government officials, according to local outlets. The child safety concerns are not new. In July, the Indian government had ordered Meta to remove advertisements and content promoting child sexual abuse material on Instagram, following earlier reporting on the matter.
