Social media users have claimed that India’s request for platforms to remove content mentioning the “India variant” of coronavirus is proof the variant itself doesn’t exist. This is not true, and the claim misrepresents the Indian government’s position.
According to a letter seen by Reuters, India's information technology (IT) ministry has written to social media companies asking them to take down any content that refers to an "Indian variant" of the coronavirus (here).
The letter, which is not public, said the term “Indian variant” should not be used to describe a variant prevalent in the country, which is referred to by the World Health Organization as B.1.617.
“WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports,” it said.
The WHO discourages naming a disease or a variant after a location, as this can lead to stigmatizing countries or people, and may not accurately reflect where the disease emerged or who is at risk.
However, social media users (here , here and here) have confused the dispute about identifying the variant with whether it actually exists.
“We told you it was a hoax from the beginning, and you called us ‘Conspiracy Theorists’, but you didn’t listen!” several posts read.
“I emailed Mr Rakesh Maheshwari at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in India, and he responded personally with this email confirming that the Indian Government have asked Big Tech and the WHO to remove ‘Indian Variant’ online as it doesn’t exist, it never did. It was just propaganda.”
The posts include a screenshot of an email that appears to be signed by a Rakesh Maheshwari, the group coordinator for Cyber Laws in India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
The response says: “The whole aim of such an advisory to curb spread of mis-information impacting any country.”
But as the original letter explains, the disagreement was over the naming of the variant rather than its existence.
A senior Indian government source previously told Reuters the notice was issued to send a message "loud and clear" that such mentions of "Indian variant" can spread miscommunication and hurt the country's image (here).
According to a social media executive speaking to Reuters, it would be difficult to take down all content related to the phrase. This is because there would be hundreds of thousands of similar posts, and “such a move would lead to keyboard based censorship going forward.”
VERDICT
False. India asked social media firms to take down content mentioning the term ‘Indian variant’ because they believe it has been incorrectly named, not because it doesn’t exist.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here.
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