Meta’s recommendation system puts India’s safe-harbour rules under review

The government’s dispute with Meta centres on whether a platform remains only an intermediary when its recommendation system chooses which user content to show and paid promotion increases its reach.

Section 79 of India’s IT law gives platforms safe-harbour protection for third-party content when they meet due-diligence requirements. Officials are examining whether active selection and amplification make a platform closer to a publisher for some legal purposes.

The debate followed the temporary removal of a post associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Meta met the IT minister and secretary and apologised, while a parliamentary committee had warned that legal protection could be reconsidered.

Government concerns also include unlabelled synthetic content, deepfakes, the recirculation of flagged material and child sexual-abuse content. These issues make recommendation design a public-policy question rather than a private product decision.

Any change will need precise definitions. A rule that ignores algorithms may fail to address modern distribution, while one that treats every recommendation as publication could create uncertainty for legitimate speech.