“Hello Mark, please do not get bullied & apologise to anyone,” she wrote on X.
“Indian govt blackmails & threatens citizens all the time, gets content critical of it removed at will. One video mistakenly removed for few hours didn’t make heavens fall!” the MP further said.
On Monday, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, as a Parliamentary panel chief, demanded that Zuckerberg apologise for the incident.
Meta could lose its “safe harbour” protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act if he failed to do so, Dubey had warned, as reported by Hindustan Times.
Trouble broke out after Meta briefly removed a Facebook reel uploaded by PM Modi on July 23. The selfie video, which remained unavailable from around 12:30 am to 5 am, saw the PM address the youth after protests over the NEET UG 2026 paper leak.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has then summoned representatives from Meta, Google, YouTube, X and Snapchat, along with officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), to explain the removal.
Dubey questioned Zuckerberg’s “intention” after chairing the meeting and said the temporary removal of the PM’s video was a serious matter.
“Meta’s mindset is to destabilise the country… This is a very serious issue. Our committee has said two things – the apology must come from Mark Zuckerberg or else we will take back the safe harbour given to Meta under Section 79,” the BJP MP told reporters.
Platforms like Meta get “safe harbour” protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act. This protects them from being held liable for content posted by users, as long as they follow legal requirements and government directions.
Meta apparently apologised at the meeting and said the Prime Minister’s reel was removed due to an algorithmic error.
“An executive of Meta apologised for taking down PM Modi’s video from Facebook. He said there was some algorithm mistake. He also assured next time it won’t be repeated and that Meta will amend their algorithm,” an MP present during the meeting confirmed.
On Tuesday, the government said it would raise concerns over Meta’s handling of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), AI-generated content and the temporary removal of Modi’s video when the company’s global team visits India on August 5-6.
The government wants to understand why these lapses occurred and what steps Meta was taking to prevent them, IT secretary S Krishnan said.
