A viral breaking news graphic on social media claims that India is banning Instagram, citing overuse by teenagers under the age of 18 as the reason. Through this fact-checking article, let’s verify this claim.
Claim: Indian Government has decided to ban Instagram.
Fact: No news reports validate the claim regarding the ban. The viral news graphic is a breaking news template of ‘1st India News’, and they have clarified that the graphic is morphed & fake. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
Firstly, we searched the internet to check the claim’s veracity. We did not find any credible news reports to support the claim that India is banning Instagram. We also could not find any official information from the government on any of its websites.
Also, to see if there is any supporting evidence for the claim, we looked at Meta’s website, which is the parent company of Instagram. There too, we did not find any credible information to support the claim regarding the ban of Instagram in India.
Furthermore, we observed that the viral graphic contained the logo for 1st India News. Taking this as a hint, we searched the internet to find the original social media post or web article published by ‘1st India News’, which contained this graphic. However, such a search did not lead us to any such new articles or social media posts.
However, during the research, we found that, on 16 June 2023, 1st India News took to Twitter and clarified that their Breaking News template had been edited to create this graphic and that their legal team is investigating this matter. Moreover, as of today, Instagram is still accessible in India.
To sum up, the message claiming that the Indian Government has decided to block Instagram is fake.
