A post is doing rounds on social media which shows a letter that says “this device is not for south Indian people”. #NothingPhone1 #dearnoting is also being used along with the post. The letter is attributed to ‘Nothing’ smartphone company which launched their smartphone in India. Let us fact-check this claim.
Claim: A letter from Nothing mobile company states that their device is not for south Indian people.
Fact: Telugu tech YouTuber ‘Prasadtechintelugu’ made a video in which he is seen talking about regional youtube channels not receiving mobile review units from ‘Nothing smartphone’ company and various other smartphone brands. He featured a fake letter in his video. The image in the post which shows a letter is a screengrab from his video. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
After following the hashtag in the post, we found multiple posts on Twitter mentioning the YouTube channel named Prasadtechin Telugu.
After a brief investigation, we found that he made a video titled: ‘Nothing phone unboxing‘ in which he can be seen opening a smartphone box containing a letter that reads,” Hi Prasad, this device is not for south Indian people. ThankYou.”
He later talks about how other smartphone brands and not just Nothing Brand, ignore regional tech creators by not sending them their smartphone review units. Creators from the tech YouTube space in India usually get review units from smartphone companies before the official release to review them and post a video on their channel. It is usually the company’s discretion as to who is sent these review units.
After he uploaded the video, users on social media started posting boycott messages against the Nothing phone1. Various hashtags like #NothingPhone1 #dearnoting, and #BoycottNothing were used. It turned into a South India vs. North India Debate. Those posts can be seen here, here and here.
‘Nothing India’ has later released an official statement on the incident. Talking about the fake letter the statement said, ‘Misrepresentation and Misleading claims are absolutely not acceptable.’
‘YouTuber’ Prasad has since deleted the video from his YouTube channel. But a short clip from it can be watched here . He later uploaded another video in which he clarified that the letter was created by him and was not sent by the ‘Nothing smartphone’ brand. The ironical part of the whole thing is that even the original post’s description acknowledges the fact that letter was not sent by Nothing and they created the post to talk about smartphone brands not sending review units to South Indian tech channels.
To sum it up, viral image of a letter attributing to Nothing mobile, which reads “this device is not for south Indian people”, is fake and done on purpose by a Tech YouTuber to highlight the alleged apathy of smartphone brands towards south indian content creators.
