Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook headquarters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said social media provided timely feedback to governments so there was room for timely course correction.
The Prime Minister was fielding the opening question from Mark Zuckerberg at the much-anticipated Townhall session at Facebook headquarters today.
The Facebook CEO, who had invited him for the interaction, asked about the role of social media in governance and whether the Prime Minister, who was "one of the early adopters of internet, social media, and Facebook", had anticipated it.
"People on social media vote every day. Earlier, it would be an election every five years now it's every five minutes on social media... people are voting right now whether on Modi is doing the right thing or not," PM Modi said, much to the amusement of the audience.
In a serious vein, he then added that social media has reduced the earlier gap between the government and the people.
"Today because of social media, governments are being stopped from committing mistakes. They are given a chance to fix mistakes and the government can do it if it is sensitive," he said.
Talking about the importance of social media in his own case, he said though he was not a very well educated man, social media "filled a gap" for him.
"In a few words I could say a lot. I gained acceptance for being who I am, which is very satisfying. Social media gave me what I was looking for," he said.
PM Modi is in Silicon Valley as part of his Digital India push. After Facebook, he visited the Google headquarters.
The Prime Minister arrived in San Jose last night and met the Silicon Valley's top tech chiefs, including India-born Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Google, sharing his plans for digital India in a massive event at Silicon Valley, followed by dinner with 350 business leaders.