Govt Asks Meta To Change Algorithms (Img: X)
New Delhi: The Indian government has asked social media giant Meta to make major changes to its platform systems to tackle the growing problem of deepfakes, manipulated content and online propaganda. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed Meta to submit a detailed roadmap explaining how it plans to improve content moderation and prevent the spread of harmful digital content.
The move comes amid increasing concerns over AI-generated videos, fake images and misleading posts spreading rapidly across social media platforms. Officials have asked Meta to strengthen its algorithms so that suspicious and manipulated content can be detected faster before reaching a wider audience.
According to government sources, MeitY has asked Meta to improve its content monitoring mechanisms, speed up the removal of content flagged by authorised agencies and ensure better coordination with government response teams.
The ministry has also emphasised compliance with India's data localisation requirements and urged the company to develop faster systems for identifying deepfakes, morphed images and other forms of digital manipulation.
Meta’s technical team reportedly presented details of its existing systems for managing harmful content during discussions with government officials. However, authorities have asked the company to introduce targeted improvements to address concerns related to artificial intelligence-generated content and misinformation.
Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create realistic-looking videos, images or audio clips that can falsely show people saying or doing things they never actually did.
Experts have warned that such technology can be misused for spreading fake news, political propaganda, financial fraud and damaging personal reputations.
With the rapid growth of AI tools, governments worldwide are looking at stricter measures to ensure social media companies take greater responsibility for content appearing on their platforms.
The latest discussions come after a recent controversy involving Meta, when a social media post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing young people and promising strict action against paper leaks was briefly restricted on Facebook.
Meta later called it a technical error and restored the post, but government officials reportedly found the explanation insufficient and sought further clarification from the company.
Following the incident, discussions between government representatives and Meta officials focused on platform accountability, content moderation systems and preventing similar issues in the future.
