Trolled: Amitabh Bachchan shares fake news on Twitter again

Team Udayavani, Apr 6, 2020, 6:43 PM IST

Mumbai: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan was once again criticised for sharing fake news on social media by retweeting a post on Twitter that falsely showed an illuminated India in the world map on Sunday.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed people to switch off lights at their homes and light laps, candles, diya’s and mobile phone torches on Sunday for nine minutes at 9pm to show solidarity in the country’s fight against Coronavirus.

Bachchan, 77, shared a tweet showing how the entire country was ‘lit up’ with lamps and candles for the #9pm9minutes drive.

The World sees us .. we are ONE .. https://t.co/68k9NagfkI

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 5, 2020

Bachchan is one of the most active and followed celebrities on social media. His followers count on Twitter alone stands at a staggering 41.1 million.

Calling out the tweet as fake, a social media user said, “And the #KingOfFakeNews is back appreciating a Whatsapp forward. Request @TwitterIndia to suspend him and save us the daily embarrassment.”

This is the third time in a little over a fortnight that the actor has shared misinformation on social media.

On March 23, Bachchan was called out for one of his tweets, which claimed vibrations from clapping, blowing conch shells as part of Janata Curfew would have reduced or destroyed coronavirus potency as it was ‘amavasya’, the darkest day of the month.

Even the Press Information Bureau busted the viral fake claim, writing, “NO! The vibration generated by clapping together will NOT destroy #Coronavirus infection.”

Four days later, Bachchan shared a video in which he cited Chinese experts to claim that COVID-19 spreads through flies, a claim which was later busted by the Union Health Ministry.