The Uttar Pradesh government has come up with a new social media policy encouraging influencers to promote the State government’s initiatives, schemes, and achievements with prize payments. The initiative of encouraging pro-government posts, schemes on social media faces sharp criticism from the various quarters with the Opposition parties alleging that no influencer or social media warrior can save a government which is bound to face defeat in coming election.
“The government has decided to list agencies/firms to give advertisements to promote them for making and displaying content through digital medium like tweets/videos/posts/reels about schemes and achievements of the U.P. Government. It will also help in employment opportunities to citizens of the State,” a press note issued by the Principal Secretary, information department, Sanjay Prasad, read.
The policy also mentions of categorising influencers in four categories with payment limits for influencers based on subscribers and followers on their platforms. “For X, Facebook, and Instagram, the maximum monthly payment limits are set at ₹five lakh, ₹four lakh, ₹three lakh and ₹two lakh respectively, while on YouTube, the payment limits for videos, shorts, and podcasts are ₹eight lakh, ₹seven lakh, ₹six lakh, and ₹four lakh, respectively,” the statement added. Under the policy the government has been authorised to take legal action if such paid contents shows any anti-national, anti-social, or derogatory contents.
“We are against any kind of censorship on social media. What has been done is bidding the independent voices and threating them, if they do not fall in line, but no influencer can save this government which is bound to go. The aim is to provide employment to BJP-linked people,” SP spokesperson Ameeque Jamei said.
The Congress while criticizing U.P. government’s move, describing it shows nervousness amid truth coming out through social media platforms in the era of digital literacy.
“With the increasing penetration of social media in this era, the move is an attempt to silence criticism. A lot of independent digital platforms brought truth of the BJP government in the last five years in front of public and defeated fake narrative created by the ruling party since 2014, it is a ploy to silence them through such measures,” Anil Yadav, U.P. Congress General Secretary said.
Digital influencers running social media platforms argue it signals government’s attempt to get produced its favourable content and influence public through the medium. “With the rise of social media, the government faces stiff criticism over various issues, it wants now to create a favourable environment for itself and in a way through its money power want influencers to work as cheer leaders,” Santosh Singh, who runs a Digital platform Times of Swaraj, said.
