Meta executives faced a second straight day of questioning by Indian government officials on Thursday, August 6, over issues including Instagram’s content recommendation algorithms and the social media giant’s compliance with local laws, government sources said, according to a PTI report.

The company, according to the report filed from New Delhi yesterday, said it was working to tackle deepfakes, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and bot accounts.

The Union Government will push the company to take continuous measures to address its various concerns, sources told PTI after the hour-long meeting concluded.

Meta yesterday faced Centre’s questions on whether it is adhering to Indian laws, algorithmic issues, as well as guardrails to meet constitutional and legal requirements, government sources said and pointed out that the company has assured that it is serious and “working hard” to address deepfakes, CSAM, and bots.

The company’s global team, including Meta global affairs head Joel Kaplan, met IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for the second straight day yesterday following the government’s summons over the temporary restriction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Facebook post recently.

The series of meetings will go on for 3-4 days in all, and the next round will see Meta’s technical team engaging in discussions with the government.

Government sources said that Meta assured that there are serious issues, and that it is working “very hard” to address concerns around deepfakes, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), bots and synthetic content.

Asked about discussions on the fairness of algorithms, sources said that Meta informed them that it has mechanisms in place to deal with the issue.

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, did not reply to questions from the media after the meeting.

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.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee, too, sought an apology from Zuckerberg over the removal of Modi’s Facebook post, warning in a letter that protection and immunity available could be withdrawn if no apology was forthcoming within three days.

Meanwhile, another PTI report added that the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) yesterday staged a protest outside a luxury hotel in central Delhi where senior Meta executives were staying, demanding that the US tech giant apologise to users whose accounts were blocked, suspended or taken down.

Holding banners and placards reading, ‘You deleted the voice of citizens but found your voice to apologise to PM’, the protesters raised slogans accusing Meta of suppressing student voices and critical content on its platforms. (The image is a file photo, courtesy Mark Zuckerberg Insta account)