Meta India’s Public Policy VP Apologises to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

Meta, through one of their senior officials, has issued an apology following controversy over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments about the 2024 Indian general elections.

Shivnath Thukral, VP of public policy of Meta India, responded to Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s minister of electronics and IT, and said, “Mark’s observation that many incumbent parties were not re-elected in 2024 elections holds true for several countries, but not India. We would like to apologise for this inadvertent error.”

“India remains an incredibly important country for Meta, and we look forward to being at the heart of its innovative future,” he added. 

The controversy began a week ago when Zuckerberg, on a recent podcast episode, said that many incumbent governments worldwide, including India, lost elections in 2024 due to factors such as inflation, economic policies, or the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In an attempt to debunk these claims and express his “disappointment”, Vaishnaw earlier wrote on X, “Zuckerberg’s claim that most incumbent governments, including India in 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect.”

“From free food for 800 million, 2.2 billion free vaccines, and aid to nations worldwide during COVID-19 to leading India as the fastest-growing major economy, PM [Narendra] Modi’s decisive third-term victory is a testament to good governance and public trust,” he added. 

On Tuesday, Nishikant Dubey, chairman of the parliamentary committee on IT and communications, said they would summon Meta India to apologise for such false statements. “Wrong information in any democratic country tarnishes the image of the country,” he said. 

AIM contacted Meta to clarify whether this was the company’s official statement or apology but did not receive a response. 

A few days ago, the company announced that it is integrating large language models (LLMs) into its content moderation strategy. “We’ve started using AI LLMs to provide a second opinion on some content before we take enforcement actions,” read a blog post by the company. This also meant a significant reduction in the number of human fact-checkers across all Meta platforms.