Peeved by the unwarranted comments on Lok Sabha elections by social media giant Mark Zuckerberg, the Parliamentary Committee is to summon representatives of the Meta during the next couple of days.
In past also social media giants Facebook and the then Twitter, Amazon, Google were summoned by the Centre and Parliament committees on different issues including protection of data and its privacy and allegation over supporting a particular individual, group or party in elections.
The Centre led by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has already responded and countered to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claims that most incumbent governments, including BJP led NDA, lost their positions post the Covid -19 pandemic.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who heads the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, sought an apology from social media giant Meta for “tarnishing” India’s image. He said that the panel will summon the firm very soon.
“My committee will summon Meta for this incorrect information. Incorrect information about any democratic country tarnishes its image. This organisation will have to apologise to the Indian Parliament and the people here for this mistake,” Dubey said in a statement.
A day earlier Vaishnaw took the lead to criticise Zuckerberg for making “factually incorrect” statement that the incumbent government in India lost the election in 2024 over issues arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is disappointing to see misinformation from Zuckerberg himself. Let’s uphold facts and credibility,” Vaishnaw said on several social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter) from where the matter has spiraled.
While Zuckerberg owns the controlling stake in the Meta group of companies, X is now headed by US Tycoon Elon Musk. “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,” Vaishnaw said in a statement.
Zuckerberg in a podcast said 2024 was the big election year around the world and in a lot of countries like India, the incumbent governments lost the polls.
The Meta chief was referring to 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which BJP lost its majority and the third term of Narendra Modi’s government was formed by alliance partners like JDU and TDP as NDA alliance.
“A lot of people in the United States focus on this as an American phenomenon, but I kind of think that the reaction to Covid probably caused a breakdown and trust in a lot of governments around the world, because 2024 was a big election year around the world. And you know there are all these countries, India, just like a ton of countries, that had elections and the incumbents, basically lost every single one of them,” Meta CEO had mentioned in the podast.
This is not the first time that India has been irked by the irresponsible acts by these social media companies as in year 2020 also the then Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had written to Zuckerberg accusing the social media platform employees of supporting people from a political predisposition that lost successive elections, and of “abusing” the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and his cabinet members.
The parliamentary standing committee on IT chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had summoned Facebook officials on the alleged misuse of its hate speech rules. The Parliament committee has also summoned officials of Amazon and Google on the certain issue earlier.
