'Please Uninstall WhatsApp': Big B Trolled Yet Again For Sharing Fake #9pm9minutes Satellite Image

Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan has been hitting the headlines a lot lately, courtesy his "controversial" tweets. From claiming that rising decibel levels would destroy the effect of coronavirus to tweeting that the deadly virus is caused by flies, Bachchan's tweets have been creating quite a stir on social media.

And, the actor is at it again. On late Sunday night, the actor quote retweeted a picture, which claimed to be a satellite photo of India during the #9pm9minutes activity. PM Narendra Modi had appealed to the nation to switch off all lights of houses on April 5 at 9 PM for 9 minutes, and just light a candle, 'diya', or flashlight, to show the unity of Indians in the fight against coronavirus.

"When the world was wavering! Hindustan was shining! Today's picture is telling this," the picture was tweeted alongside this post. Bachchan quote retweeted the photo by writing, "The World sees us.. we are ONE.."

A little digging quickly showed that the picture was not a satellite photo of India during the #9pm9minutes activity on Sunday, but rather, a photoshopped image of Google's visualisation of the global effects of the #MeToo movement that showed all of India brightly lit up with people searching for information about the movement.

Credits: Me Too rising, a visualisation of Google Trends data.

Soon after Bachchan's tweet went viral, netizens started trolling him for sharing yet another "fake WhatsApp forward" on social media.

One user wrote, "And the #KingOfFakeNews is back appreciating a Whatsapp forward. Request

@TwitterIndia to suspend him and save us the daily embarrassment." (sic)

Another tweeted, "Whatsapp ruined the celebs by unmasking them and exposing their superlative levels of stupidity."

It is the third time that Bachchan, who has been raising awareness about the deadly virus via PSAs and short films, has attracted criticism for sharing a post that many on social media say is unverified and fake.

Earlier, during the Janta curfew announcement by Modi on last Sunday, Bachchan had tweeted a fake theory that claimed vibrations from clapping, blowing conch shells would have reduced or destroyed coronavirus potency as it was "amavasya", the darkest day of the month.

He had posted the tweet along with his picture, which had three question marks scribbled on it, leading many to wonder if the actor was sharing his opinion or questioning the theory floating on social media. However, his tweet was met with criticism as netizens slammed him for tweeting something which was not factual. Even the Press Information Bureau (PIB) busted the viral fake claim, writing, "NO! The vibration generated by clapping together will NOT destroy #Coronavirus infection."