The Indian Government has ordered the social media companies to remove any content related to or mentioning or referencing to the ‘Indian Variant’ of the Corona Virus as soon as possible. The companies were asked to take this step in a bid to restrict the spread of Corona Virus and also restrict the misinformation that is being spread on the social media about the Covid-19. All the social media and digitals platforms have received the latest advisors already.
The Ministry of Information and Technology, On Friday, May 21, in a letter to all the social media platforms wrote about this. The letter emphasized that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has not yet associated with the term or reference ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports or research.
A formal legal notice was issued in this regard by the IT Ministry against the social media platforms which states that a “false statement” is being circulated online which implements that an ‘Indian variant’ of the coronavirus is spreading across the countries.
The Ministry of Information and Technology said that the matter has already been made clear by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday, May 12, 2021 by means of a press release.
All the social media platforms have already been ordered to “remove all the content that names, refers to, or implies ‘Indian variant’ of coronavirus from your platform immediately”.
Earlier, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had issued advisories and notices concerning restricting the false news and misinformation concerning the Indian Variant of the virus that has been spreading on the social media platforms.
The government had also introduced guidelines and advisories to curb the misuse of social media platforms in the earlier months of the years.
