New Delhi, Jan 13: Mark Zuckerberg, the Chairman and CEO of Meta Platforms Inc. has stirred controversy with his comments on India in a Joe Rogan podcast.
He cited India as an example while discussing the dissatisfaction among the citizens across the world with their governments’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. His statement further suggested that, following the pandemic, most incumbent governments, including India, lost in the subsequent elections.
Reacting to statement, union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw called out Zuckerberg for spreading misinformation. In a social media post, Ashwini Vaishnaw noted that India, which is the largest democracy in the world, saw a record turnout of more than 640 million voters in the 2024 general elections. These elections resulted in the victory of NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a straight third term. Vaishnaw further pointed out some of the key steps taken by the Indian government during COVID 19 pandemic to aid the citizens
Vaishnaw further wrote that Zuckerberg’s remarks fail to recognize these efforts and the strong mandate secured by the Indian government, and risk undermining the credibility of Meta’s platforms. .
Zuckerberg in the Joe Rogan podcast had said: “I kind of think that, reaction on covid probably caused the breakdown in trust in lot of governments around the world. 2024 was the big election year around the world and lot of countries like India and ton of countries that had elections and incumbents basically lost every single one. There is some sort of global phenomena where the it was inflation because of the economic policies to deal with covid or just how the governments dealt with covid, seems to have this effect that’s global not just the US, but like a very broad decrease in trust atleast in the set incumbents and maybe in sort of these democratic institutions overall.”
