India summons Meta executives over briefly restricted Modi Facebook post

MUMBAI, July 30 - ‌India has ​summoned ​executives from U.S. tech giant Meta, a senior official said on Thursday, after its Facebook ‌platform briefly restricted a post by Prime ⁠Minister Narendra Modi last week.

• A video message by Modi ‌posted on Meta's Instagram ‌platform and later shared on Facebook was restricted temporarily on the latter.

• A Meta spokesperson said ​at the time that the post had been blocked inadvertently.

• "We have asked Meta to come in ⁠at the highest level and explain what is happening," S. Krishnan, ​secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said on Thursday.

• He did ​not say who, specifically, had ‌been requested to appear.

• Meta told Indian authorities it established new protocols relating ⁠to accounts of prominent persons to prevent such a situation from recurring, Krishnan added.

• Meta India did not ⁠immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Thursday.

• ​Modi's video post on July 23, his first addressing the massive student protests that forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to ‌resign on Saturday, has more than 404 million views on Instagram.

• The sparring ‌with Meta is the latest example of Modi's ⁠government taking on Big ‌Tech over content-related ​issues.

• India is Facebook's biggest market by users.

(Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Joe ‌Bavier)

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