On Tuesday, Bhartiya Janta Pary (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey, who heads the parliamentary committee on communications and information technology, said that his team would summon Meta over its CEO Mark Zuckerberg remark that the incumbent government in India lost the election in 2024 due its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nishikant Dubey wrote on X, “My committee will summon Meta for this misinformation. Incorrect information tarnishes the image of any democratic country. The organization will have to apologize to the Indian Parliament and the people of this country for this mistake”.
In a podcast, which was the pat of series of media appearances that Zukerberg made after declaring the termination of the US third-party fact-checking system and a slew of controversial changes his platforms’ content policies, he claimed that after COVID, people lost faith in government’s information, which is why incumbent governments lost the 2024 election.
Zuckerberg had stated, “It’s not just the US. I think a lot of the people in the US focus on this as a kind of an American phenomenon but I kind of think that the reaction to COVID probably caused a breakdown in trust in a lot of government around the world. I mean 2024 was a big election year around the world and all these countries, India, just like a ton of countries that had elections and the incumbents basically lost every single one. There is some sort of a global phenomenon where the whether it was because of inflation, because of the economic policies to deal with Covid or just how the governments dealt with Covid, it seems to have had this effect that is global, not just the US, but like a very broad decrease in trust, at least in that set of incumbents and maybe in sort of these democratic institutions overall”.
Union Minister Facts-Checks Mark Zukerberg
Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw criticized Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, on Monday for making the “erroneous assertion” about the government, saying it was disheartening to see the billionaire disseminating false information.
He stated, “As the world’s largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. The people of India reaffirmed their trust in the NDA led by PM Narendra Modi’s leadership. Mr. Zuckerberg’s claim that most incumbent governments, including India in the 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect”.
He praised the Modi government’s epidemic efforts and urged the tech billionaire to maintain credibility and facts.
He wrote on X, “From free food for 800 million, 2.2 billion free vaccines, and aid to nations worldwide during COVID, to leading India as the fastest-growing major economy, PM Modi’s decisive 3rd-term victory is a testament to good governance and public trust. @Meta, it’s disappointing to see misinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. Let’s uphold facts and credibility”.
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