Government Questions Meta Over Compliance With Indian Laws

PTI, August 6, 2026, New Delhi: The Union government is questioning the visiting Meta team on whether the company is adhering to the law of the land, following summons to the social media giant over the temporary restriction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Facebook post recently, sources said on Thursday.

The government and the Meta global team are currently engaged in discussions.

Meta will also be questioned on its algorithms, whether its compliance mechanism has sufficient checks and balances, and guardrails to meet constitutional and legal requirements, government sources said.

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw met the Meta global team on Thursday, sources said, adding that the ministry's discussions with technical teams will continue thereafter.

This is the second round of questioning of Meta's global team by the government, after the Prime Minister's July 23 Facebook post — addressing students and youth and promising stringent action against examination paper leaks — was restricted for about five hours on the platform, raising issues around intermediary accountability.

Meta's Global Affairs Head, Joel Kaplan, who served in the administration of George W. Bush — including as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy — before joining Meta (then Facebook) in 2011, was summoned by the government to explain why the Prime Minister's Facebook post was temporarily restricted.

On Wednesday, Kaplan and his team met IT Secretary S. Krishnan, and then the IT Minister.

After the executives of the US tech giant met Vaishnaw on Wednesday, government sources said Meta has apologised for the temporary removal of Modi's post, as well as for failures ranging from child sexual abuse content to deepfakes and boosting certain content on being paid "a lot of money".

While Kaplan, who flew in for meetings with Indian officials, said in a written statement on Wednesday that he "apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi's post", government sources, who did not wish to be identified, said the apology came from company Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee, too, sought an apology from Zuckerberg over the removal of Modi's Facebook post, warning in a letter that the protection and immunity available could be withdrawn.