House panel to summon Mark Zuckerberg's Meta for spreading misinformation on India’s general elections

Social media giant Meta is set to get a summons from a Parliamentary Standing Committee over its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's remark on the 2024 Indian general election.

Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) Member of Parliament and chairman of the House panel on Communication and Information Technology Nishikant Dubey said Meta would be summoned on grounds of spreading misinformation.

"Misinformation on a democratic country maligns its image. The organization would have to apologize to the Parliament and the people here for this mistake," Dubey said in a post on X.

In a podcast on Jan 10, Zuckerberg (40) said the Covid pandemic had led to an erosion of trust in incumbent governments the world over. He incorrectly cited India's example in this connection.

"2024 was a very big election year around the world and all these countries, India, had elections. The incumbents basically lost every single one. There is some sort of a global phenomenon - whether it was because of inflation or the economic policies to deal with COVID-19 or just how the governments dealt with Covid. It seems to have had this effect that's global," he said.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw fact-checked Zuckerberg's remark and said the people of India had reaffirmed their trust in the NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha election held last year.

"As the world's largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. People of India reaffirmed their trust in NDA led by PM @narendramodi Ji's leadership. Mr. Zuckerberg's claim that most incumbent governments, including India in 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect," Vaishnaw, Minister for Railways, Information and Broadcasting and Electronics and Information Technology in the Modi 3.0 government said in a post 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," he added.

The ruling BJP, which had scored thumping victories in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, suffered some setbacks in the general election last year and ended below the majority mark.

The NDA alliance, however, crossed the magic figure comfortably with key allies bolstering the BJP's numbers.

A united Opposition led by the Congress made gains, but fell well short of the numbers required to turn the tables. With Modi 3.0, Modi became only the second Indian Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to get the top post for three consecutive terms.