Fest of memes: Parties look at influencers to create false narratives in Karnataka

Mohammed Zaibulla Khan, attorney, Deshak Law Reigns, said, “In a bid to pocket the votes of youth and ‘Gen-Z’ voters coming into the foray this time, political parties are leaving no stone unturned in turning this ‘festival of democracy’ into a ‘festival of memes’ in a bid to reach the youth voters of the country, who come in staggeringly game changing percentages. It is high time for some amendments in the form of insertion of new provisos in the Representation of People’s Act which would impose strict restrictions in the event of hiring of “influencers” and using meme pages to push political agendas, non-compliance of which must result in grave repercussions.” However, he said taking into consideration the democratical aspects, there can be no restrictions on meme page admins posting or pushing political material in their individual capacity on their personal profiles, but not subtly in exchange for consideration on the platform they built to attract traffic for ‘fun’ and ‘entertainment’ purposes, as is typically spelt out very particularly on their meme-page profiles. “Creation, ideology and selling creative posts for money are three different aspects and should not be mixed up. But there are many social media influencers who have already started posting such contents on social media platforms and are urging others as well to accept such offers by political parties,” he said.