On Friday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) has written a letter to the social media companies. In the letter, Ministry has asked the social media companies to take down all the content related to the ‘Indian Variant’ of Covid-19.
On May 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the coronavirus variant – B. 1. 617, which was found in India last year is a variant of ‘global concern’.
Later on the same day, the Government of India issued a statement to the media and said using the term Indian variant would be inappropriate as WHO has classified it as just B. 1. 617.
The IT Ministry has also said that it has been clarifying that there is no such variant named as Indian variant and has asked the companies to remove the content which refers to the Indian variant.
On May 12, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a press release stated that false information has been spreading all across social media and it must be removed from the platform immediately.
The social media platforms have been asked to "remove all the content that names, refers to, or implies Indian variant of coronavirus from your platform immediately.”