The Indian government on Monday has fact-checked Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg’s claim about the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and said that it was “factually incorrect”.
The development comes after Zuckerberg in an interview on Friday with popular podcaster Joe Rogan, wrongly claimed that most incumbent governments, including India, lost elections in 2024.
“Zuckerberg’s claim that most incumbent governments, including India in 2024 elections, lost post-Covid is factually incorrect…it’s disappointing to see misinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. Let’s uphold facts and credibility,” Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Railways, Information and Broadcasting, and Electronics and Information Technology, said via a post on X.
As the world’s largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. People of India reaffirmed their trust in National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, he said.
“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 added.
In the almost three-hour discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg on Friday had said, “I kind of think that the reaction to Covid probably caused a breakdown of trust in a lot of governments around the world … 2024 was a big election year around the world, and there are all these countries, India, just like a ton of countries that had elections…And the incumbents basically lost every single one.”
Zuckerberg’s comments drew sharp criticism from across the spectrum.
Meanwhile, Meta last year had announced a change in their fact-checking approach, starting with the US. The social media platform said it was moving away from partnerships with professional fact-checking organisations, and instead implementing Community Notes, a system that was first implemented on X.
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“To fight the spread of misinformation and provide people with more reliable information, Meta partners with independent third-party fact-checkers that are certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) who identify, review and rate viral misinformation across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp,” the company had said.