Indian minister fact-checks Zuckerberg over 2024 Modi win

Facebook founder claimed that most incumbent governments, including India’s, lost 2024 elections due to their handling of Covid-19.

India’s minister of railways, electronics and IT Ashwini Vaisnaw on Monday reacted to claim made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the results of 2024 general elections in the world’s largest democracy.

During an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday, Zuckerberg, in an attempt to highlight how the Covid-19 pandemic led to a global erosion of trust in governments and influenced elections, made the claim that most incumbent governments, including India’s, lost elections in 2024. This sparked some ire in New Delhi.

Zuckerberg’s claim “is factually incorrect,” Vaisnaw wrote on social media platform X. “As the world’s largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. People of India reaffirmed their trust in NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.

NDA, the National Democratic Alliance, the political bloc led by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has emerged a winner in last year’s elections to Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament), securing 293 out of 543 seats.

However, unlike the elections of 2014 and 2019, when the BJP secured a parliamentary majority (of at least 272 seats) on its own, this time it fell short by over 30 seats and had to rely on the support of its allies, mainly regional parties, to form the government.

As the world’s largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. People of India reaffirmed their trust in NDA led by PM @narendramodi Ji’s leadership.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s claim that most incumbent governments, including India in 2024 elections,…

— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) January 13, 2025

Vaisnaw, whose post on X went viral on Monday and triggered much reaction, also tagged Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, when adding that it was “disappointing to see misinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself.”

His remark came days after Meta announced ending its controversial third-party fact-checking which, the Meta founder admitted, has become “too politically biased” and such checkers have “destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”

With President Donald Trump set to take charge in a week, the move by Meta was widely seen as an example of Big Tech aligning itself with him and his administration.

“The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said. In response, outgoing US President Joe Biden called (the move to allow free speech) something “really shameful,” while one global network warned of “devastating consequences” if the tech giant broadened its policy to other countries.

India has over the past years tightened its rules and guidelines on misinformation online. In April 2023 New Delhi announced new IT rules that put more obligations on social media platforms to act against unlawful content and fake news. “Misinformation impacts individuals, markets, economies, enterprises and governments. This is increasingly creating violence, law and order situations and incitement,” the minister, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said at the time.

AI-generated content and deepfakes were in focus during last years’ election in India after some videos purported to show top Bollywood stars criticize Modi – and endorsing his main opposition, the Indian National Congress party.