Joel Kaplan, Meta Platforms' Chief Global Affairs Officer, has apologised to India's information technology minister for the temporary restriction of a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July, he said in a statement on Wednesday.
"I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi's post," Kaplan said.
Last month, Ministry of Information and Technology called in Meta executives after Facebook briefly restricted access to a post of PM Modi.
Meta explained that the post had been blocked inadvertently because of an operational mistake.
Last week, Reuters reported, citing a senior police officer, that Hyderabad City Police had also filed a case against Meta India head Arun Srinivas over Facebook videos that allegedly portrayed Modi in an "abusive manner."
The videos circulated as Modi faced the largest surge of youth-driven demonstrations India has experienced in over ten years. These protests were sparked by NEET paper leak, which ultimately prompted the resignation of his education minister.
These incidents are part of a recent wave of friction between Meta and Prime Minister Modi's government over content concerning the prime minister.
In recent weeks, Modi has been the target of a wave of online criticism, mockery, and derision from protesters.
Separately, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology to the Indian government for the presence of child sexual abuse material, deepfake content, and other operational failures on the company’s platforms, according to local media reports earlier in the day.
Zuckerberg issued an apology during a meeting involving Meta executives and Indian government officials, according to reports by financial news outlet Moneycontrol and other local media.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In July, the Indian government instructed Meta to take down advertisements and content on Instagram that promoted child sexual abuse material, according to a BBC report citing a senior official from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
At the time, Meta stated that it enforced a zero-tolerance policy toward child sexual abuse content and was actively enhancing its detection systems, the BBC reported.
