A claim that India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has made it a “punishable offense” for citizens to publish posts on social media about the novel coronavirus has been shared repeatedly on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:, The post reads as: “#information All honorable members of the group are informed that right now any post related to Corona virus has been declared a punishable offense by the Central Government, only a government agency can post on Corona. In case of wrong post or message, action will be taken against the members of the entire group including the group administrator by registering a lawsuit under the IT Act, so keep in mind be safe! Ravi Nayak, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.”, Since March 24, 2020, India has been under a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19. The virus\xa0has killed at least 67,594\xa0people and infected more than 1.2\xa0million others worldwide, according to World Health Organization data\xa0on April 6, 2020., A similar claim was\xa0also shared on Facebook here and here and on Twitter here and here., The claim is false., “No such order has been issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs,” the Indian government’s official Press Information Bureau said on Twitter here on March 30, 2020., No such order has been issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.\n\t\tNote: By sharing only official and accurate information on coronavirus, you can protect yourself and your family members.\n\t\tFor authentic information, please follow @MoHFW_INDIA and @PIB_India pic.twitter.com/XhVJnzjaUV, A search of the Home Ministry’s website for an employee named “Ravi Nayak” also produced no results., Below is a screenshot of the search result:, , , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
Hoax circulates in India that government has banned coronavirus-related posts on social media | AFP Fact Check