In light of the controversy surrounding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments on the 2024 general election, a representative from the company in India issued an apology today for the “inadvertent error.”
In response to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s fact-checking of Zuckerberg’s statements regarding the 2024 elections worldwide, Shivnath Thukral, Meta India’s vice-president (public policy), stated, “Dear Honourable Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mark’s observation that many incumbent parties were not re-elected in 2024 elections holds true for several countries, but not India. We would like to apologise for this inadvertent error. India remains an incredibly important country for Meta and we look forward to being at the heart of its innovative future.”
The apology comes a day after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who leads the Parliamentary standing committee on Communication and Information Technology, stated that Meta would be called to account for spreading misinformation due to Zuckerberg’s comment.
“Misinformation on a democratic country maligns its image. The organisation would have to apologise to the Parliament and the people here for this mistake,” Mr Dubey said in a post on X.
During a podcast on January 10, the 40-year-old co-founder of Facebook remarked that the Covid pandemic caused a decline in trust towards existing governments globally. He misrepresented India’s example in this regard. “2024 was a significant election year globally, with countries like India also holding elections.” The current holders effectively lost all of them. There appears to be a worldwide occurrence—whether due to inflation, the economic strategies for managing Covid, or simply how governments responded to Covid. “It appears to have created this worldwide effect,” he remarked.
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Shortly after, Union Minister Vaishnaw clarified the statement and mentioned that the citizens of India had reconfirmed their confidence in the NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during last year’s Lok Sabha election.
“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,” Mr Vaishnaw, who handles portfolios of Railways, Information and Broadcasting and Electronics and Information Technology in the Modi 3.0 government, said in a post on X.
