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Informist, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025

NEW DELHI – After a row over remarks by Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive officer of social media giant Meta Platforms, Inc., owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, on the 2024 general election, a representative of Meta India Tuesday gave an apology.

Meta India Vice-President (Public Policy) Shivnath Thukral apologised for the "inadvertent error" and asserted that India remains an "incredibly important" country for Meta. Thukral issued the apology on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's post.

"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," Thukral said.

Zuckerberg had said that several incumbent governments, including the BJP government in India, had lost elections in 2024 as people lost trust in governments after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thukral apologised Tuesday night after Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology Chairman Nishikant Dubey of the Bharatiya Janata Party said on X that his committee would summon Meta for this "wrong information".

Zuckerberg had made the remark on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience Friday. "...I kind of think that the reaction to COVID probably caused a breakdown in trust in a lot of governments 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," he said.

"There is some sort of global phenomenon where, 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," Zuckerberg had further said on the podcast.

Vaishnaw countered Zuckerberg's statement Monday, saying the people of India had reaffirmed their trust in the National Democratic Alliance. "Mr. Zuckerberg's claim that most incumbent governments, including India in 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect. People of India reaffirmed their trust in NDA led by PM Narendra Modi Ji's leadership. ...it's disappointing to see misinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. Let's uphold facts and credibility," Vaishnaw wrote on X.

The BJP suffered a setback in the 2024 general election, winning only 240 seats, 32 short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha. The party had won 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and 282 seats in the 2014 polls, and had set itself a target of winning 400 seats last year. With the support of its allies, the BJP was able to form the government for a third consecutive term, as the NDA secured 293 seats.  End

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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