New Delhi: Meta has apologized for briefly taking down a Facebook video of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, addressing young protesters, calling the removal an error. The company restored the post within hours, even as the government moved to summon Meta’s senior policy leadership for an explanation.
The controversy began in the early hours of Tuesday, when users in India found that Modi’s video had disappeared from Facebook. Some who tried to view it were shown a message stating the content was unavailable in the country “due to a legal request”, although no law or authority was named.
Meta subsequently disowned that explanation. A company spokesperson said only that “the content was removed in error and has since been restored,” without elaborating on what had gone wrong internally.
The video at the centre of the episode was posted on July 23. It marked Modi’s first direct, selfie-style address to Generation Z (Gen Z) since student protests entered their 36th day over alleged leaks of NEET examination papers.
In it, Modi told young viewers that the government had deployed its full resources to ensure the NEET examination went ahead without delay for roughly 22 lakh aspirants. He also signalled that tougher measures against paper leaks would be taken up at the following day’s cabinet meeting.
MeitY summons Meta, Instagram global policy head
The removal, brief as it was, drew a swift official response. According to government sources cited by news agencies, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) summoned Meta’s global head of public policy, whose remit covers both Facebook and Instagram, to explain the takedown.
The ministry itself has not issued a formal statement on the summons. Sources told reporters the matter was being treated seriously in the Centre, Although no timeline was given for when the meeting would take place or what action, if any, might follow.
This is not the first time a ministry has hauled in a global platform’s leadership over content decisions. Under India’s intermediary guidelines, social media companies are required to explain takedowns and restore wrongly removed content promptly – a compliance obligation that appears to be the backdrop against which this summons was issued.
Instagram numbers keep climbing
Even as the Facebook video ran into trouble, the same address had no difficulty finding an audience elsewhere. It remained live throughout on Instagram, where various reports said it crossed anywhere between 100 million and 300 million views within 24 hours of posting.
Modi’s follower count on the platform also continued its climb through the episode. Figures cited across reports range from just under 101 million to upward of 105 million, a discrepancy that reflects differing snapshot times rather than any dispute over the broader trend.
Either way, Modi remains the world’s most-followed politician on Instagram by a wide margin. He holds more than double the following of the next most prominent figure among world leaders – the US president, Donald Trump.
Whether Tuesday’s takedown was, as Meta insists, a simple technical error or something the government wants examined more closely will likely become clearer once the summoned executives meet Indian officials. For now, the episode adds to a running theme in India-Big Tech relations, in which content moderation missteps, however brief, draw a swift and public official response.