Battles on social media continue amidst the country’s raging political and weakening economic scenario. While the ruling party and the opposition are both up in arms on the various social media platforms, often ridiculing and name calling each other, the fight has reached a new low.
Somebody calling himself ‘Jitega Bharat’ created and uploaded a fake video featuring Amitabh Bachchan, superstar of the Hindi film industry, in which he is shown endorsing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the next Prime Minister of India. Evidently, the video is unavailable now.
The incident was brought to attention when Bachchan shouted “Fake! Fake! Fake!” about the video on Twitter. He then followed up with a longer tweet explaining how the video was created. It appears that his voice and text from a previous ‘I Lead India’ campaign for The Times Of India were mixed with visuals from a promotional campaign for Modi.
T 1130 -FAKE !! FAKE !! FAKE !!! APPALLED AND ANGERED BY THIS ILLEGAL ACT ON ME .. PUTTING IT UP NOW, DO READ AND SEE AND CONDEMN .. !!!
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) August 21, 2013
T 1130 – FAKE !! FAKE !! … DEAR ALL … FAKE VIDEO CIRCULATION .. In the year 2007, I did a ‘Lead India’ (cont) http://t.co/t2Eu83g2Nj
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) August 21, 2013
An infuriated and angered Bachchan stated that he has brought this to the notice of the concerned authorities and has asked his digital team to find out its origin, to initiate action against the perpetrator.
“I want to say that this is an illegal act that deserves strong action. I am shocked by it and do not agree with it at all. This is a clear abuse and violation of the Copyright Act, and it should be condemned by everyone involved in this platform,” he added.
Bachchan had also put simultaneous updates on Facebook asking for support from his 4.9 million fans. The Twitter-savvy star’s 6 million followers condemned the illegal act against their favourite star with a bevy of tweets in his support. Some even tried trending #WeAreWithYouAmitabhBachchan.
Interestingly, along with the many tweets in support of Bachchan, there is a tweet by Narendra Modi too, urging the author of the fake video to take immediate action and apologise to the actor.
Agree with @SrBachchan . The author of the fake video should take action immediately and apologize to Amitabh ji.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 22, 2013
The video has been removed in the course of these events in the last 12 hours, but it remains to be seen what action will be taken against the author of that fake video, especially since his Twitter handle has been found out.