Dr. Nishikant Dubey, who chairs the parliamentary committee on Communications and Information Technology, recently announced that the committee plans to summon Meta in response to a statement made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the 18th Lok Sabha elections. He emphasized that misinformation can tarnish the image of a democratic nation, adding that the organization should apologize to both the Indian Parliament and the people for the error.
This statement follows Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's criticism of Zuckerberg's claim that the incumbent Indian government lost the 2024 elections due to its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaishnaw took to Facebook to express disappointment over what he labeled as "factually incorrect" information, asserting the need to uphold facts and credibility.
In the controversial podcast appearance on Joe Rogan’s show, Zuckerberg discussed global election trends and mentioned that many governments, including India’s, faced significant challenges during the pandemic. He suggested that this contributed to a general decline in trust toward incumbents worldwide.
In contrast, Minister Vaishnaw highlighted the Indian government's achievements during the pandemic, such as providing free food to 800 million people and distributing over 2.2 billion vaccines. He asserted that the decisive win for PM Modi's government in the 2024 elections was a testament to effective governance and public trust, noting that India successfully conducted the election involving over 640 million voters.
In other news, Meta Platforms announced its intention to legally challenge a directive issued by India's competition authority, which imposed data-sharing restrictions between WhatsApp and its other applications.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) instructed WhatsApp to refrain from sharing user data with other Meta-owned applications for advertising purposes for a period of five years. Additionally, the CCI fined Meta USD 25.4 million for antitrust violations related to the messaging application's 2021 privacy policy.
ALSO READ: Meta dilutes content moderation policy, paves the way for X-like Community Notes model