IT ministry summons Meta after PM Modi’s video briefly removed from Facebook: Reports

The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday summoned Meta’s global head of public policy after a video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefly taken down, ANI reported.

Secretary S Krishnan told the news agency that the company contended it happened because of a “technical error” but said that the reasoning was not “acceptable in its entirety”.

On Thursday, the prime minister posted a late-night video message on social media assuring strict action on cases of paper leaks in competitive examinations, amid nationwide youth protests over irregularities in the process.

However, on Tuesday morning, the video was briefly unavailable, Economic Times Tech reported.

Users in India saw a notice that access had been withheld in the region following a legal request.

“The content was removed in error and has since been restored,” PTI quoted an unidentified Meta spokesperson as saying.

Krishnan told ANI that the removal of authorised content was “extremely disturbing” and should not be repeated.

He added that the social media platform’s apology was a “good step” but maintained that it was not satisfactory.

“What was done was wrong,” the secretary said, adding that the ministry has sought further details from the platform.

“We will follow this up to see that there are systemic corrections to ensure that such instances do not recur,” he said

The development follows a direction from the Delhi...

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