Obnoxious content about cow and milk is allowed on social media

Finally the vaccine for Covid-19 has reached the market and vaccination has begun in a couple of countries. India is also at the verge of launch of this vaccine with a stringent protocol on phasewise selection of beneficiaries. This is a good-news for the industry and everyone is pulling socks to realize their dreams for expansion and growth .

Early this week Delhi High court for the first time intervened in one of its hearing on a denigrating campaign linking name of Amul with cow cruelty. The esteemed court has asked the author of the unverified content posted on YouTube and face book regarding the same. This is a good sign symbolizing the true concern of judiciary to curb the uncontrolled growth of such malicious and misdirecting content on social media.

Cow cruelty is a misnomer

Cow cruelty by farmer in India is a misnomer. He keeps 3-4 animals for financial as well as nutritional security of his family. These small and marginal farmers produce over 80% of the milk. There are around 80 million such dairy farmers in India. If you visit YouTube then you will find hundreds of videos on each of the following key titles without any validation and verification.

• Milk is Poison
• 68% of milk in India is adulterated
• A2 milk is better than A1 milk
• WHO has warned on milk quality in India.
• Benefits of A2 ghee
• Protein based milk are real substitute to milk

And many more…..

Milk is a first food of life and cow is our mother. The time spent by a common man during Covid-19 has increased exponentially. Social media has become a national media now. Everyone in a blindfolded way believes in the content being shared on such platforms.

Need for digital media legislation

There is no legislation, which could actually ask for verification and validation of such contents. In a benign manner such communication is impacting the mindset of youth , less educated folks and kids in particular. It is also creating a negative opinion about milk in general masses also. There are many individuals and small time organizations who take pride in disseminating such negative and misinterpreted information.

FSSAI , the food regulator in the country has not yet vetted the differential advantage of Desi cow milk or A2 milk or other A2 milk products. Even the regulators of developed world have not vetted this claim. WHO never gave such warning and in turn released an advisory refuting the news.

It is unfortunate that most of the social media never releases any corrigendum as in the case of publications. There is no recourse to any obnoxious content being published on such platforms. The audience always learns it the wrong way and enters into a negative spiral of learning and further creating word of mouth.

Government notification

There have been advisory by ministry of Information and broadcasting with FSSAI disallowing such unverified content in advertising. This notification does not cover content over social media. India needs stricter laws to censor such content, which are a blow to our cultural and religious sentiment. In the absence of such digital legislative framework, it would be very difficult for the dairy farmers to continue loving their animals.

I hope that the think-tank of Indian dairy industry would take a serious note of this issue and would bring all such cow and milk related content under some kind of legal scrutiny.

I request all of you to share your perspective on this issue and suggest suitable measures, which could be shared with the authorities.

A blog by Kuldeep Sharma