GUWAHATI: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has called representatives of Meta, X, Snapchat and Google to appear before it on August 3 amid increasing scrutiny over social media regulation, user privacy and platform accountability.
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The meeting will be held at 4 PM on August 3, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, chairperson of the committee, said in a post on X.
The committee will hear representatives from Meta-owned platforms Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, along with X, Snapchat and Google, to examine issues related to protecting the privacy of women, children, farmers, rural communities, labourers and the general public.
Dubey said the panel would also review how social media platforms handle content moderation and activities that may have implications for public order.
The committee’s move comes amid renewed scrutiny of social media platforms following the temporary removal of a video posted on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Facebook account. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had sought responses from Meta and Instagram’s global leadership over the incident.
The video became unavailable in India on Tuesday morning, with users reportedly receiving a message indicating that the restriction followed a legal request. Meta later restored the post, saying the removal had occurred due to an error.
The incident raised concerns over content moderation practices, responses to legal takedown requests and the safeguards followed by social media platforms before restricting content posted by prominent public figures.
The upcoming committee meeting is expected to examine broader issues, including misinformation, deepfakes, child safety, impersonation, privacy protection and the role of algorithm-driven systems in amplifying harmful content.