New Delhi:
Social media giant Meta is likely to receive a summons from a parliamentary standing committee over its boss Mark Zuckerberg's comment on the 2024 Indian general election. Nishikant Dubey, BJP MP and chairman of the House panel on communications and information technology, said Meta would be called out for spreading misinformation.
“Disinformation about a democratic country damages its image. The organization should apologize to Parliament and the people here for this mistake,” Dubey said in a post on X.
In a podcast on January 10, the 40-year-old Facebook co-founder said the Covid pandemic had led to an erosion of trust in incumbent governments around the world. He wrongly cited the example of India in this context. “2024 was a very big election year around the world and all these countries, India, had elections. The incumbent parties basically lost them all. There is some kind of global phenomenon – whether it is due to inflation or economic policies to deal with it. with Covid or just how the governments dealt with Covid. It seems to have had a global effect,” he said.
Soon after, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw fact-checked Zuckerberg's comment and said the people of India had reaffirmed their faith in the NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in last year's Lok Sabha elections.
“As the world's largest democracy, India organized the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. The people of India reaffirmed their faith in the NDA led by Prime Minister @narendramodi Ji. Mr. Zuckerberg's claim that most incumbent governments, including India in the 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect,” said Mr. Vaishnaw, who holds the Modi portfolios of Railways, Information and Broadcasting and Electronics and Information Technology 3.0 government, said in a post on X.
“From free food for 800 million people, 2.2 billion free vaccines and aid to countries around the world during COVID, to leading India as the fastest growing major economy, Prime Minister Modi's decisive victory in the third term is a evidence of good governance and public trust. It is disappointing to see disinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. Let us uphold facts and credibility,” he added.
The ruling BJP, which had registered huge victories in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, suffered some setbacks in the general elections last year and finished below the majority mark. However, the NDA alliance comfortably crossed the magical figure with key allies strengthening the BJP's numbers. A united opposition led by Congress made gains, but fell far short of the numbers needed to turn the tables. With Modi 3.0, Prime Minister Modi became only the second Indian Prime Minister, after Jawaharlal Nehru, to hold the top position for three consecutive terms.