Govt Asks Social Media To Take Down Contents Referring To Indian Covid Variant

India’s information technology (IT) ministry has written a letter to all social media companies asking them to immediately take down any content from their platform that uses or refers to an “Indian variant” of the coronavirus. The move has been made to curb misinformation around COVID-19.

On May 11, the World Health Organization said that the Indian coronavirus variant B.1.617 was being classified as a variant of global concern. Soon after, the Indian government issued a statement asking media reports using the term “Indian Variant” were without any basis, saying the WHO had classified the variant as just B.1.617.

“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.

The further clarification comes from a senior government official that the letter has been sent to make it crystal clear that such mentions of “Indian variant” spread miscommunication and hurt the country’s image. Right from last year, doctors and health experts global-wide have been generically referring to many coronaviruses on the basis of where they are identified, including South Africa and Brazil variants.

However, social media experts argue that it is an ordeal to remove all content using the word among thousands of such posts, adding that “such a move would lead to keyword-based censorship going forward. India has the second-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world, reporting around 250,000 infections and 4,000 deaths daily.