India Reviews Meta's Recommendation System for Intermediary Status

The Indian government is examining whether Meta's recommendation systems and paid content promotion are consistent with its legal status as an intermediary under the country's Information Technology Act, following a series of high-level meetings this week. The core question is whether the platform, by actively deciding what content is shown to users, crosses into the role of a publisher and assumes greater legal responsibility.

The discussions, which began on Wednesday, were led by IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and IT Secretary S. Krishnan with Meta's global team, headed by Joel Kaplan, the company's global affairs head. The meetings were initially convened following the temporary restriction of a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Facebook. During the initial sessions, Meta apologized for the error in restricting the Prime Minister's post.

The talks quickly expanded to broader content moderation issues, including the circulation of deepfakes, child mistreatment material, and unlabelled synthetic content. Officials questioned Meta on why AI-generated videos without required labels remained visible on its platforms despite IT rules mandating such content be identified. A key...