Stop circulating Shah Rukh Khan fake news and other spurious junk. Yes, we mean you!
After Pulwama, an old fake news item about Shah Rukh Khan donating money to Pakistanis has gone viral. But who makes such lies circulate? It's us.
In this age of social media, when we say something went ‘viral’, we must pause for a second and think about how it went viral.
Because we — the social media users — shared it.
Why? Because we either liked or disliked the video and wanted more people to watch the same.
Just saw some fake news about @iamsrk. I have yet to meet a kinder and more compassionate star - someone who helps people in need without making a noise or using his good deeds for image building. I'm not permitted to say anything but I had to say this - #StopFakeNewsAgainstSRK
— Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) February 18, 2019
In the aftermath of Pulwama, social media has become the destination of all sorts of odd things. There are people baying for blood on social media, on the one hand. On the other, there are people opening their doors to Kashmiris across the country.
So, it’s not unexpected either that one section of people started slamming Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan and another supported him this morning over something concocted in 2017, which has now gone viral in 2019.
And which is just stupid.
It was rumoured in 2017 that Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan had apparently donated Rs 45 crore to Pakistan tanker tragedy victims.
But this had never happened — the fake news item was busted at that time as well.
Interestingly, the video doing the rounds today on social media, mainly on WhatsApp, is taken from a fact-check video of a television show, which fact-checked the said information — and proved that SRK didn’t make any such donation.
Now, videos don’t go viral on their own. Some people, with some particular interests, push these. And they wait for the right moment to do so and spread hatred. Just after Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan donated funds for the families of the Pulwama victims, this old — and fake — news of SRK apparently donating an unbelievable amount to Pakistanis just had to come up.
SRK is not alone in being targetted here. Sania Mirza too was slammed for not condemning the Pulwama attack. Telangana BJP leader Raja Singh also raised a demand for removing Sania Mirza as brand ambassador of Telangana because she is 'Pakistan’s daughter-in-law'.
We stand united ???? #PulwamaAttack pic.twitter.com/Cmeij5X1On
— Sania Mirza (@MirzaSania) February 17, 2019
Celebrities like SRK and Sania Mirza in all likelihood can't be personally harmed over such news. But such absolutely bizarre — and poisonous — peddling of hatred affects regular folks, and that's what the perpetrators want. They are sure that their targets are so gullible, they won't even check whether the video sent is real or fake, when this tanker tragedy took place in Pakistan or any relevant facts.
In a moment, they will just share the video in the thousands of WhatsApp groups they are part of.
They are among us.
They are us.
An 'us' that has a choice to stop this and break that 'Forward' chain.