Kerala CM's office gets Meta to restore two official posts after takedown
The Kerala Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said on Saturday that Meta has restored two official posts on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s Facebook page, days after they were removed without prior notice. The restoration came after the CMO wrote to Meta and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, seeking an explanation for the takedown under the Information Technology Act.
The two posts that were removed included one announcing the Onam festival allowance for Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and another carrying greetings for Milad-un-Nabi, marking the birth of Prophet Muhammad. Both were official government communications aimed at specific communities, and their removal had triggered concern within the state administration.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Chief Minister Vijayan confirmed that the content was back online but described the arbitrary removal of verified government communications as a “serious concern.” He added that his office has sought clarity on whether the removals were triggered by automated systems or manual reviews. The CMO has also called for robust safeguards to protect official public communication handles from similar action in the future.
The Chief Minister’s Secretary took up the matter with Meta and the Union IT Ministry, requesting a formal explanation under the IT rules. No response from Meta has been made public so far.
This incident is part of a broader pattern that has drawn criticism in Kerala. Last month, several media reports highlighted that Meta had removed or restricted posts critical of the state government, including one by Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan about the arrest of Youth Congress leaders on synthetic drug peddling charges. Opposition parties accused the government of an “undeclared social media emergency,” while the Kerala Union of Working Journalists called the move a threat to press freedom.
Chief Minister Vijayan has consistently denied any role in the removal of such content. At a press conference, he said he had never made any request to Meta to take down posts and that he had no influence over the platform. He also noted that a previous request to Meta for the restoration of the CMO’s official Instagram account had gone unanswered for two months, indicating the platform’s lack of responsiveness to government requests.
The latest development raises important questions about how social media platforms handle content from state governments. With official pages often being the primary channel for welfare announcements and public information, unexplained takedowns can disrupt the delivery of essential updates. The Kerala government has said it will continue to engage with Meta and the central government to ensure that the IT rules are applied transparently and that official communication channels are not subjected to arbitrary moderation.
The restoration of the two posts is a positive outcome, but it does not address the underlying issue of accountability in platform content moderation. As more governments rely on social media for public communication, clear guidelines and responsive mechanisms are needed to prevent such disruptions in the future.
