NEW DELHI: An Indian parliamentary panel called on Wednesday for Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg to apologise for the temporary removal of a video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India, the world´s most populous country, is Meta´s largest market by users, with hundreds of millions of people using Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Modi´s video, addressing students during youth-led protests July 23, was briefly removed from Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, but was later restored.
Meta has said it was caused by technical error.
Nishikant Dubey, who heads the parliamentary committee on communications and information technology, said the panel blamed Meta.
“Deleting the prime minister´s video was not the work of an intermediary, but that of a publisher,” Dubey said, a lawmaker in Modi´s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Zuckerberg will have to apologise within three days.”
Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer at Meta, said he met with India´s Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday and apologised.
“I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi´s post,” Kaplan said in a statement.
India´s parliamentary standing committees scrutinise government policies and can summon officials and company executives to answer questions.
However, they cannot themselves impose penalties, revoke legal protections or direct prosecutions.
