Chairman of the parliamentary panel on IT, Nishikant Dubey, said that Meta will have to apologise to the people of the country for spreading misinformation
Recently, Mark Zuckerberg, in a podcast with Joe Rogan, said that most incumbent governments globally, including that of India’s, lost elections in 2024
Just a day ago, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that it was disappointing to “see misinformation from Mark Zuckerberg himself”
Meta’s regulatory skirmishes refuse to abate in India. Now, the parliamentary standing committee on communication and information technology plans to summon the social media juggernaut over Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments on 2024 Indian general elections.
In a post on X, the parliamentary panel’s chairman and BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said that the company will have to apologise to the people of the country for spreading misinformation.
“The committee will summon @Meta for spreading this wrong information. Misinformation in any form can potentially tarnish the image of a democratic country. For their mistake, this organisation (Meta) will have to apologise to the Indian Parliament and to the people of the country,” said Dubey.
Recently, the Meta CEO, in a podcast with Joe Rogan, said that most incumbent governments globally, including that of India’s, lost elections in 2024.
It is pertinent to note that the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the general elections in India in 2024 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Zuckerberg, while responding to a question on the podcast, claimed that the pandemic caused a breakdown in trust in a lot of governments around the world for reasons ranging from post-Covid economic policies to inflation, and even how the governments dealt with pandemic.
The comments received a terse response from Indian authorities. Just a day ago, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw slammed the company for spreading misinformation, saying that it was disappointing to “see misinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself”.
With this, Meta appears to have landed itself in yet another regulatory soup. In the past, too, the social media giant has been in the eye of a regulatory storm for multiple reasons, including issues with service reliability, flouting competition laws and failure to crackdown on misinformation and fake news on its multiple platforms.
Meta is also in the dock in the country for violating antitrust laws in connection with the 2021 WhatsApp privacy policy case. It has been ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to pay a penalty to the tune of INR 213.14 Cr. The social media major is reportedly looking to appeal the ruling.
As if this was not enough, the company has also been struggling to contain the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated synthetic content. Last month, the Delhi HC ordered Meta to take down deepfakes, which puroportedly featured journalist Rajat Sharma, on its platform.
