Coronavirus has taken the entire world by storm. Day by day, it can be seen that the spread of the disease is increasing. The disease started originating from China and is slowly seen to make its entry to other countries. Due to the disease making its presence everywhere many schools have been shut down and also people are advised to stay indoors as much as they can.
The rise of the epidemic
It has been seen that China’s widely used messaging app ‘WeChat’ has been cutting out keywords that seem to relate to COVID-19. This has been happening since the start of January 2020. It has been identified that between the period of Jan 1st and Feb 15th close to around 500 such keywords that are related to coronavirus have been deleted from the WeChat app.
WeChat is seen to have outcasted the word regarding coronavirus from its platform since December 2019. For the past two months, the app seems to be providing data regarding the actual number of affected by the disease. In Wuhan, around eight doctors were arrested on account of spreading fake news without any relevant information.
Is China responsible for deleting information regarding Coronavirus??
Moreover, there are even people involved who have led to mass panic due to the spreading of the rumors regarding the disease all across the country. In response, WeChat claims that it takes every possible measure to bring down any posts that are false or are without any relevant proof.
WeChat came under the Chinese government’s scrutiny due to the spread of false news regarding the number of people affected by the disease. The number was nearly double than the actual number of coronavirus cases detected. The images regarding this false information have also been spread across various social media platforms.
WeChat accused of censoring information about the dreaded disease!
Few other people have also been arrested on grounds of spreading fake news in countries including Kerala, Bangkok, and Malaysia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqD5zD-yXg
Source : www.buzzfeednews.com
