India Demands Meta Apologizes For Mark Zuckerberg's Comments

UNSPLASH/Joydeep ILLUSTRATION Sensarma

JAKARTA - India has asked for an apology from the social media giant (medsos) Meta for the CEO's comments, Mark Zuckerberg regarding the general election in the country last year.

New Delhi also said it would summon representatives of Meta to attend a parliamentary committee meeting in the next few days.

"The misinformation in any democratic country damages the image of the country. The organization must apologize to the Indian parliament and the people here for this mistake," wrote Nishikant Dubey, chairman of the parliamentary committee for communications and information technology, on social media platform X reported by ANTARA from Anadolu, Wednesday, January 15.

The statement came after Zuckerberg said in a joint broadcast with American TV host Joe Rogan of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost in last year's election due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I think the reaction to COVID may lead to a collapse of confidence in many governments around the world, because 2024 is a major election year around the world. And you know, there are many India' countries, like many other countries that hold elections, and basically all incumbents lose," he said.

India's Minister of Information Technology, Arwini Vaishnaw, on Monday (13/1) said Zuckerberg's claim that most of the incumbent governments, including India, losing the post-COVID 2024 election was false in fact.

"As the largest democracy in the world, India is holding the 2024 election with more than 640 million voters. The Indian people reaffirm their trust in the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) led by PM Narendra Modi," he said.

Modi's BJP party lost its majority in elections held last year and is now leading the government with the support of small allies under the NDA umbrella.

India has a huge number of social media users and many have complained that their social media accounts have been banned in the world's most populous country.

In 2023, the Indian government informed parliament between January 2018 and October 2023 that it had blocked 36,838 social media URLs in the country.