Representatives of Google, Meta appear before Par panel on IT

Representatives of social media platforms like Google, Meta, YouTube and top officials of the ministries of home and MeitY on Monday appeared before a parliamentary panel on the issue of social media regulation. The meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, headed by BJP member Nishikant Dubey, was held days after the government summoned Meta’s global team for briefly restricting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Facebook post.
Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) S Krishnan and representatives of social and digital media platforms –Snapchat, Google, X (formerly Twitter), Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) and YouTube — appeared before the committee to discuss the subject ‘Social and Digital platforms and their regulation’. Last week, the MeitY summoned Meta’s global team on issues relating to algorithmic bias, the platform’s algorithmic processes and their role in public order after the social media company briefly restricted the prime minister’s Facebook post, sources had said on Friday.
In the Facebook post, PM Modi was addressing India’s youth and promising stringent action against paper leaks. While the US-headquartered social media giant had attributed the incident to a technical glitch and apologised, the MeitY found the explanation “inadequate”. The company had said that the content was removed “in error” and was restored on the platform. (PTI)