Mohandas Pai shares fake news on Twitter, removes it after outrage 

Mohandas Pai.

Mohandas Pai, the chairman of Manipal University and former director of Infosys, shared a link on Twitter that led to a post titled “Top 10 list of Most Corrupt Political Party in the World 2018” on a fake-news website called bbcnewsshub.com. The website is not connected to the original British Broadcasting Corporation news website bbc.com.

Here’s the screenshot of Pai’s tweet:

Many Twitter users criticized his post and pointed out that the website is a fake news site. Pai accepted that it was a fake site, but despite a request from the BBC’s Trushar Barot to remove the tweet, he refused to do so. Instead, he had the following to say:

Why don’t you officially deny this and say that you have nothing to do with the address? It is your responsibility to look after your brand! Even you publish wrong news and people protest you just do not care too. https://t.co/mXmzJecOWj

— Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) September 17, 2018

Nonetheless, he buckled after the outrage refused to subside and removed the tweet later.

The post on the fake-news site carried a list of “the 10 most corrupt political parties in the world”, in which India’s Congress party was listed as the second-most corrupt party. Earlier, the same website carried a post with a list that showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the “seventh-most corrupt leader in the world”.  

Pai also argued with some well-known journalists, who pointed the insignificance of sharing a news from a fake news website.

The issue is the names in the list and the info,not the site. Have you read the list,would you say those political parties have no history of corruption?Most of them are more than 50 years and have a well documented history!why defend the names when you are well read,have Data https://t.co/SZX2WhmXI2

— Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) September 17, 2018

Rajdeep, the list and the information and data is interesting, the site name is not. I have not attributed anything to the BBC! BBC can protect its name!everybody knows it is not an official BBC site! People will read the info and make their own judgement,they are smart! https://t.co/u4CXgryDiM

— Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) September 17, 2018

Pai's tweet got thousands of likes and was retweeted nearly 800 times before it was removed. When fact-checking website BOOM tried to reach Pai, he said: “The information on the site is what matters. There is a list of political parties that are known to be corrupt. Most of them are 50 years old. All the data points that they are corrupt. How it matters is whether the site is fake or not?”