Mark Zuckerberg apologises to Indian govt over child sexual abuse material and deepfake content

Meta Platform's ​Chief Executive ‌Officer ⁠Mark Zuckerberg ⁠has apologised ​to ​the Indian ​government ⁠over ‌child ​sexual ​abuse material on ⁠Meta platforms ​and operational ​errors.

As per government sources, Zuckerberg sent his apologies for "Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CASM), deepfake content and errors in operating the platform."

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The government made it clear to Meta that the company cannot claim protection under the "intermediary" definition, since its algorithms determine which users receive specific content. As a result, the safe harbour provisions under the IT Act do not apply to the platform, officials told the platform's executives.

As per sources, Meta team admitted that "lot of money" was paid for boosting certain type of content and "regretted the mistakes."

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, IT Ministry sources said that social media platforms, including Meta, must comply with the law of the land as a parliamentary panel asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to issue an "unqualified apology" within three days over the brief removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Facebook post recently.

Meta stands to lose its “safe harbour protection” in India if it fails to do so in the stipulated deadline, the IT Ministry sources added earlier in the day.

A high-level Meta delegation met IT Secretary S. Krishnan in the national capital to discuss the erroneous takedown of the Prime Minister's video. They were also scheduled to meet Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.