Meta has apologised to the Indian government after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Facebook post was briefly restricted due to what the company described as an operational error.
Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said he personally apologised to India’s Information Technology Minister on behalf of the company.
“I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting Prime Minister Modi’s post,” Kaplan said in a statement on Wednesday.
Last month, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology summoned Meta executives after the post was temporarily blocked on Facebook.
Meta later explained that the restriction was accidental and resulted from an internal operational error.
The incident comes amid growing tensions between Meta and the Indian government over content involving Prime Minister Modi.
Last week, police in the southern city of Hyderabad registered a case against Meta India head Arun Srinivas over Facebook videos that allegedly portrayed Modi in an abusive manner.
The videos circulated during widespread youth-led protests triggered by leaked national examination papers, which ultimately led to the resignation of India’s education minister.
In a separate development, local media reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also apologised to Indian government officials over issues involving child sexual abuse material, deepfake content and other operational shortcomings across the company’s platforms.
According to reports, Zuckerberg conveyed the apology during a meeting between Meta executives and Indian government representatives.
Meta has not publicly commented on those reports.
In July, the Indian government also ordered Meta to remove advertisements and content promoting child sexual abuse material on Instagram.
At the time, Meta said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards child sexual abuse content and continues to strengthen its detection and enforcement systems.
