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Fake news of Cadbury got right wing tweeting “Boycott Cadbury”

AustraliaFake news of Cadbury got right wing tweeting "Boycott Cadbury"

Boycott Cadbury started trending on Twitter on Sunday with fake claims of ‘beef’ being used in Cadbury products.

The issue got triggered when VHP leader Sadhvi Prachi shared the Cadbury advertisement and objected to the use of ‘Damodar’ as the name of a poor lamp seller claiming that this has been done to show “someone with PM Narendra Modi’s father’s name in poor light”. “Chaiwale ke baap diyewala,” Sadhvi Prachi tweeted while many others started tweeting calling for the boycott of Cadbury products in India.

Due to the fake claims, social media users targeted the recent Diwali advertisement of the company. ,” After Sadhvi’s tweet, others started tweeting calling for the boycott of Cadbury products in India.

In 2021, a similar boycott call was given which prompted the company to issue a statement clarifying that all its products in India are 100% vegetarian and the green dot on the wrapper stands for that.

Twitter users who made the ‘Boycott Cadbury’ trend shared a screenshot of the product description page of the Cadbury website, in Australia. It said, “Please note, if any of our Australian products contain gelatine in the ingredients, the gelatine we use is halal certified and derived from beef.”

What is the reality of the beef claim?

The viral screenshot claiming beef in Cadbury products is not from India. Earlier when the same accusations were brought against Cadbury, Mondelez India, which manufactures Cadbury Daily Milk, its Indian products are 100% vegetarian.

Fact-checkers such as Quint found out that on Twitter, a reply by Cadbury Dairy Milk’s verified handle responded to a similar allegation made by journalist and right-wing commentator Madhu Purnima Kishwar on 18 July 2021.

The company said that the screenshot was not related to “Mondelez products manufactured in India,” and that all of their products manufactured and sold in India are 100% vegetarian. The company also elucidated that the screenshot was not related to Indian products and Cadbury also requested users to “please verify facts” before sharing the post further.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) mandates the use of differently coloured dots in squares to denote whether a product is vegetarian, contains eggs, or is non-vegetarian.

Its ‘Packaging and Labelling Regulations’ state that “every package of Vegetarian food shall bear a declaration to this effect,” with a symbol of “a green colour filled circle” which should be inside a “square with green outline.”

Quint found out that a simple keyword search directed them to Cadbury Australia’s website, where we saw similar text under the ‘Halal’ section here.

They took a screenshot of this page on a smartphone (since the screenshot in the claim is vertical and was taken from one), and compared it to the one in the claim.

They saw that the website had one word added to it, and reads, “…our Australian products contain gelatine.” The website specifies ‘Australian products.’

The claim was viral in 2021 as well, we looked for archived versions of the website and found that on 17 July 2021, the page did not contain a specific mention of Australia and resembled the screenshot in the claim.

They came across news reports from 2021, such as one by Mint, which addressed the claims made and Cadbury’s response to the screenshot from 2021. The report also mentioned that the screenshot was taken from the company’s Australian website.

Evidently, a screenshot of an old version of Cadbury’s Australian website is being shared by Indian social media users, who are calling for the brand’s boycott on religious grounds.

The over-reactions of the right wing on this issue were harsh and extreme accusing Cadbury of funding “Jihadi Terrorists” to make Hindus eat beef!

 

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