The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued an advisory dated October 10, 2026, asking Meta to ensure that its recommendation systems on Facebook and Instagram do not expose users to “a single or limited set of narratives,” according to ThePrint and Scroll. The advisory, issued under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the IT Rules, 2021, asks Meta to review content-ranking mechanisms to prevent misleading content from being amplified, to give context for photos and videos of public events, to identify content that gains wide reach quickly, to cooperate with law enforcement in time, and to watch for old or unrelated visuals presented as current events. It coincides with protests in Delhi led by the Cockroach Janta Party and opposition parties demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
The case for the advisory is the government’s argument that platforms can amplify misleading or one-sided material during tense public events. MeitY asked Meta to ensure its systems “do not result in disproportionate exposure of users to a single or limited set of narratives,” and MeitY sources said Meta’s platforms were not “promoting all narratives equally,” because their algorithms favour certain types of content. The advisory’s requests are specific and procedural: context for visuals of public events, faster identification of content with significant reach, attention to old pictures and videos shown as current, and timely cooperation with the police. Such requests rest on the powers the government has under the IT Act and the IT Rules, and they apply to a platform whose reach is large during fast-moving events such as protests.
The case against the advisory is the fear that it will limit reporting of the protests. Apar Gupta of the Internet Freedom Foundation called it a “continuing censorship directive,” asked for its withdrawal and said Meta should publicly disclose all content takedowns. The Foundation warned that it could enable the “suppression of protest reporting,” and alleged that news outlets and journalists’ accounts faced restrictions after the advisory, according to Scroll. The context is a series of curbs on the protests: Scroll reported that Delhi Police detained around 7,000 protesters, 45 metro stations were closed and mobile internet was suspended in central Delhi. An instruction to a platform to limit “narratives” is hard to separate from an instruction on what people may see, which is why critics read it as a restriction on speech.
The advisory matters for democratic debate in India because Facebook and Instagram are major places where people follow and share news of protests, and any change in how they rank content affects what citizens see. For Meta, it creates pressure to change how its systems treat political content, with the IT Rules as the legal basis. For the government, it raises the question of where legitimate concern about misinformation ends and control over political speech begins.
MeitY says it wants fair and accurate content during a tense period, while the Internet Freedom Foundation says the advisory could silence reporting. Meta’s response and any court challenge will show where the line is drawn.
Image: Meta Platforms headquarters in Menlo Park, California (file photo). Photo by LPS.1, licensed under CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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