In the video posted on July 23, Mr. Modi sought to reassure students that his administration was taking firm action on NEET examination paper leaks.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The Union Government has sought a formal explanation from Meta after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s video was briefly taken down by Facebook owing to what an automated platform alert initially described as a “legal request”.
In the video posted on 23 July, Mr Modi sought to reassure students that his administration was taking firm action on NEET examination paper leaks.
A source familiar with the matter told The Hindu that the post had been mistakenly flagged by an automated moderation tool designed to filter AI-generated content. Facebook’s parent company is said to have apologised for the error. The video was taken down only in India and remained accessible elsewhere in the world.
“The content was removed in error and has since been restored,” a Meta spokesperson told The Hindu.
Rough patch
It is understood that the government has summoned a senior executive from Meta’s policy and government relations team to explain the error, and to discuss matters regarding compliance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
As The Hindu reported earlier this year, India is now among a small group of nations where government take-down requests are processed automatically. X, formerly Twitter, continues to contest many take-down notices it receives under the Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act. Such orders expose the platform to legal liability if the content in question comes up in court.
Meta has been in the crosshairs of the Union government in the past few weeks over WhatsApp’s proposed username feature — which the IT Ministry warned could encourage impersonations — and a BBC investigation that uncovered child sexual abuse material (CSAM) advertisements on Instagram.
Published – July 28, 2026 10:46 pm IST
