Meta India Head Booked By Hyderabad Police Over AI-Generated Posts Targeting PM Modi

The Hyderabad Cyber Crime police have registered cases against Meta India head Arun Srinivas along with several Facebook and Instagram accounts, over what the complaints describe as morphed and AI-generated posts targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The content in question was circulated during a recent protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over an alleged NEET paper leak.

The cases follow complaints from two individuals, S. Aravind Reddy, described as a businessman, and T. Saikiran Goud, identified as a Telangana BJP activist. Both have alleged that while using Instagram they encountered multiple videos and images that had been digitally manipulated to portray the Prime Minister in an obscene, derogatory and misleading manner.

According to the complaints, the posts also carried comments using abusive and indecent language aimed at the Prime Minister and others shown in the material.

The complainants have said the content appeared to have been either digitally altered or produced using artificial intelligence, and that it spread widely across social platforms.

Their submission argues that material of this kind carries the potential to spread misinformation, incite public unrest, outrage public decency, defame public figures, disturb public order and encourage hostility between different sections of society.

Police have separately taken note of a number of posts and comments connected to the student protests that allegedly contained abusive and profane content. An investigation is now underway to identify who created and circulated the material, and no arrests have been reported so far.

What makes this case worth watching from a technology standpoint is less the political heat around it and more the pattern it fits into, because naming a platform's country head in a complaint about user-generated content sits at the centre of an unsettled question in Indian law.

Safe harbour protections under the IT Act have historically shielded intermediaries from liability for what their users post, provided the platform acts on lawful takedown requests, and how far that shield extends when the content in question is synthetic has not been fully tested.

With India's rules on labelling AI-generated content still taking shape, cases like this one are likely to become the ground on which the boundaries get drawn. Meta has not issued a public response at the time of writing.