Reddit is a popular platform for those looking to have conversations with a variety of people on a multiplicity of issues. Politics, economics, science, history, philosophy and everything else there is under the sun – Reddit is the one-stop destination for conversation geeks. However, when such a platform is weaponised in order to defame a country and its elected government beyond the contours of the law, it becomes contingent upon the people of that country to stand up to the tsunami of misinformation and fake news being peddled on the platform. Unfortunately, Reddit has become that platform.
If one were to search ‘India’ on the Reddit search box, the first result which would come up would be that of “India: United We Stand”. This is a Reddit community of over 5.72 lakh members, and claims to be the “official subreddit of India”. One would think that the conversations within the 5.72 lakh strong community would be nuanced and objective in nature. If not that, one would expect that both sides of the political spectrum will at least be significantly represented in the ‘subreddit’.
However, that is not the case. In fact, this particular subreddit called “India: United We Stand” is a cesspool of Islamists, Marxists and India haters. The members are simply derisive of the Indian state, ‘bhakts’ and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party – the BJP. In the latest news, as has been the ‘woke trend’, members of this community are missing no opportunity to defame ‘bhakts’ who are voicing their support for Israel as the Jewish nation battled Islamic terror being perpetrated by Hamas against it.
Here's the link of the community , check every post and comments. The page needs to be reported and stopped immediately. @StringReveals @vijaygajera@BefittingFacts @AskAnshul @theskindoctor13 https://t.co/ghirOSiIk4
— Sagar Paleja 🇮🇳 (@smartspendcode) February 15, 2021
When you search "India" on @reddit , this is the first community which comes up and they have kept bio as "OFFICIAL subreddit of India" which is worrying and hence needs to be investigated. @HMOIndia @MIB_India @MeityPib @NIA_India @rsprasad pic.twitter.com/Fpfv6KPHJc
— Sagar Paleja 🇮🇳 (@smartspendcode) February 15, 2021
What makes Reddit even more popular among propagandists is that it is very difficult to track down users if they wish to remain anonymous. Hence, India haters have a free run on this particular Reddit community. A recent post by one ‘aafwani’ on the subreddit read, “33 million gods in India and not one capable of producing oxygen: Charlie Hebdo.” It goes without saying that this Islamist was using a silly cartoon by Charlie Hebdo to target Hindus for their beliefs and faith. The comments to this conversation were all replete with vivid hatred for the belief of Indians in their deities.
In a post which claimed that “India police jail 21 Kashmiris amid pro-Palestinian rallies” by ‘dr_kasi’, a comment by one user read, “Nothing new, Indian military has been raping, killing and murdering Kashmiris in the name of security for years.” In another post titled, “How to de-bhakt people,” a user demonised all Hindus for their political choices, and said, “It is a vast number of people encapsulated by Modi, specifically Hindus (and I mean all Hindus regardless. Even if every upper-caste Hindu voted for BJP, they wouldn’t win because upper-caste Hindus are not the majority of the population of India, so that population has to come from somewhere).”
A painful and unfortunate glimpse of the community made one fact absolutely clear – that the subreddit in question was a den of anti-India activists with an explicitly liberal political stance. Islamists form a significant chunk of the members of this Reddit community. That this subreddit turns up as the topmost ‘India’ result on the platform should ring many bells in the country. Internationally, the country is being portrayed as a totalitarian one by a convenient alliance of Islamists and leftists.
The Indian government must immediately take action against this community on Reddit, which has taken upon itself to defame the country globally with absolute falsities, and with no modicum of shame. The anti-India and anti-Hindu moderators of this community need to be rounded up by authorities.