India Ministry Reportedly Asks Social Media Platforms to Remove Contents With the Words ‘Indian Variant’

Do you ever have a photo of you digging your nose plastered by your arch-nemesis onto your Facebook wall? What about that horrible nickname, “chicken feet”, posted over and over again onto the same Facebook wall?

Have you ever wanted to take them down?

Now you can ask social media companies to do so. If you are part of the government that is.

India Ministry Reportedly Asks Social Media Platforms to Remove Contents With the Words ‘Indian Variant’

India’s Information Technology Ministry has reportedly asked all social media companies to take down any content that refers to an “Indian variant” of COVID-19.

If you’re more familiar with numbers, this variant from India is the coronavirus variant B1617.

To know more about why virus mutates and what variants of concern are, watch this video to the end:

The Indian government said the term “Indian variant” was used without any basis, and even WHO only classified the variant as just B1617.

In the letter issued to social media companies on 21 May, the ministry asked the companies to “remove all the content” that names or implies “Indian variant” of the coronavirus.

“This is completely FALSE. There is no such variant of Covid-19 scientifically cited as such by the World Health Organisation. WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian variant’ with the B1617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports,” stated the letter, which was not made public.

According to a senior Indian government source, this notice was issued to prevent miscommunication and to maintain the country’s reputation.

COVID-19 Variants Vames

Across the globe, the COVID-19 variants were referred to by doctors and health experts based on the location they were identified –  at least in the early days. Some examples included the South Africa and Brazil variants.

In the past, the Indian government officials refer to the mutant British strain that spread to India as the “UK variant”.

A social media executive said removing all the content using the word is tough since there are hundreds of thousands of such post. She added, “such a move would lead to keyword-based censorship going forward”.

The Indian government were under scrutiny for their behaviour when it comes to handling the COVID-19 pandemic. They were penalised for not planning ahead and preparing for the second wave of coronavirus infections.

There were severe shortages of oxygen, vaccines, hospital beds and life-saving drugs across the country. So much so that a patient that was tested positive decided to quarantine himself on a tree instead.

Such bravery.

This is not the first time the government requested the removal of something on the internet. Last month, the government ordered Twitter and Facebook to remove posts that were critical of Mr Modi’s handling of the crisis.

Featured Image: Manoej Paateel / Shutterstock.com