Parliamentary panel to summon Meta for Mark Zuckerberg’s comments on 2024 elections

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology said on Tuesday that it plans to summon United States-based technology company Meta in response to its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s claims about incumbent governments being voted out of power in elections worldwide in 2024, including in India.

The decision was announced by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey, who heads the committee.

In an episode of the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, released on January 10, the Facebook co-founder said: “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 attributed this to citizens losing trust in incumbent dispensations due to their poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party secured 240 seat – down from the 303 seats it won in 2019. It fell short of the 272 seats needed for a simple majority in the 543-seat Lok Sabha.

However, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance secured a total of 292 seats and the Hindutva party was able to form the government with its allies.

“My committee will summon Meta over the false information,” Dubey said in a social media post on Tuesday. “Misinformation about…

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