The central government has started to come down on anyone that refers to the B.1.617 mutant strain of the coronavirus as the Indian variant. On Friday, the government directed social media companies to immediately remove any content that uses or refers to the term ‘Indian variant’ of Covid-19.
According to media reports, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wrote to all social media platforms stating that the World Health Organization (WHO) has not associated the term “Indian Variant” with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports.
“This is completely FALSE. There is no such variant of Covid-19 scientifically cited as such by the World Health Organisation (WHO). WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports,” stated the letter, according to a report by ET.
The letter intends to send a ‘loud’ and ‘clear’ message to the tech companies that their oversight in the matter will not be tolerated. However, a social media executive was quoted as saying that it would be difficult to take down all content using the word as there would be hundreds of thousands of such posts, adding that “such a move would lead to keyword-based censorship going forward.”
The fickle reasoning of the aforementioned executive is one of the reasons why people doubt the credibility of the Silicon Valley companies. These social media companies had not allowed the netizens to use the lexicon of ‘China virus’ when the pandemic first started spreading its tentacles. Former American President Donald Trump was repeatedly reprimanded for it.
However, the free pass is given to propaganda peddlers to term the ‘unspecified virus of unknown origin’ as Indian variant and reluctance to clear their platform of the said word — their duality stands exposed.
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The rising second wave of the pandemic has been distressing for the public across the country. But the western liberal media, the anti-India media lobby and left-leaning social media companies that are always looking to target India have now taken the mantle to parade propaganda that appears to demonize India for the emergence of the new deadly mutant virus.
By constantly terming the newly mutated virus, which spreads rapidly and causes greater complications, as the ‘Indian variant’, — subtle propaganda is being weaved to win the perception battle on the world stage.
While the UK variant (B.1.1.7) was the first one to reach the Indian shores and unleashed the second wave — the likes of BBC or Telegraph actively avoided using the term ‘UK strain’. However, when it came to the African strain or the Indian strain, they have no problem using them. The Journalistic integrity goes for a toss when reporting such incidents which makes one believe that perhaps it is the colonial hangover, whose stupor these publications are still in.
The letter by the Union government should set these companies in place and if they still do not clean up their mess. The Modi government should take retrospective action and bar a few of them from operating within the Indian shores.