By Omar Rashid
New Delhi: The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has approved a controversial new digital media policy incentivising positive coverage about its work by social media influencers and digital platforms while threatening legal action against content that it deems to be “objectionable” or “anti-national.”
“Under no circumstances, should the content be indecent, obscene or anti-national,” Sanjay Prasad, principal secretary to CM Adityanath and the state’s information department, said in a statement.
The state cabinet on Tuesday, August 27, approved the Uttar Pradesh New Digital Media Policy, 2024. The new policy mandates legal action against digital platforms or influencers who upload “objectionable content” on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.
On the other hand, it has made it lucrative for digital platforms as well as ‘influencers’ to propagate the “achievements” of the state government and promise them advertisements.
Digital influencers are those social media users or individuals who have a large number of followers and use their reach to endorse or market products, ideas or political beliefs. In recent years, the ruling BJP has channelised a large section of these content creators to suit its political goals but it continues to face critical coverage from some independent social media platforms as well as individuals.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
