NEW DELHI: Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ashwini Vaishnaw, on Monday called out Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, describing his statement claiming that the incumbent party lost the 2024 elections in India post-COVID as "factually incorrect."
In a social media post, the minister expressed disappointment at the misinformation being spread by the Facebook founder himself.
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 @narendramodi Ji’s leadership. Mr. Zuckerberg’s claim that most incumbent governments, including India in the 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect.”
Zuckerberg’s remarks were made during a podcast with Joe Rogan, where he cited India as an example of the global dissatisfaction with the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He suggested that, following the pandemic, most incumbent governments, including India, lost in the subsequent elections.
“Reaction on Covid probably caused the breakdown in trust in a lot of governments around the world. 2024 was the big election year around the world and a lot of countries like India and tons of countries that had elections and incumbents basically lost every single one. There is some sort of global phenomena—whether it was inflation because of the economic policies to deal with Covid or just how the governments dealt with covid—seems to have this effect that’s global, not just the US…there was like a very broad decrease in trust at least in the set incumbents and maybe in sort of these democratic institutions overall,” Zuckerberg told Rogan.
However, Vaishnaw countered this, stating that the measures taken by the Indian government during the pandemic, including free vaccines and food, contributed to the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He went on to say that Zuckerberg’s remarks failed to recognise these efforts and the strong mandate secured by the Indian government. Vaishnaw further emphasised that such comments risk undermining the credibility of Meta’s platforms.
“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,” the minister posted.