Mumbai: YouTuber Dhruv Rathee on Wednesday criticised the UP government’s social media policy, which reportedly aims to engage influencers to promote the government’s policies and schemes, The Free Press Journal reported.
It is reported that based on this policy influencers promoting the government policies on social media can now earn upto Rs 8 lakh.
Dhruv Rathee accused the government of using the tax payer's money to bribe the influencers for promoting their schemes and initiatives.
He urged the influencers to refrain from taking the money given by the government.
The YouTuber called for publicly shaming any influencer who promotes the government for money.
Taking to his social media account, Dhruv Rathee said that Uttar Pradesh government’s offer of payment up to 8 lakh to influencers to promote the government is a legalized bribery, adding that it is tax payer’s money and any influencer who promotes the government for money should be publicly shamed.
It is reported that Yogi Government has put influencers, based on their subscribers and followers on social media, into four categories, and payment for their promotions will be according to the number of their subscribers on different social media platforms.
A monthly payment limit has been set for promotions on different platforms with Rs 5 lakh, Rs 4 lakh, Rs 3 lakh and Rs 2 lakh respectively for X, Facebook and Instagram.
The payment limit for YouTube is the highest beginning from Rs 4 lakh, Rs 6 lakh, Rs 7 lakh and goes upto Rs 8 lakh.
In the event of these influencers showing anti-social, anti-national and derogatory content on their platforms, the social media policy empowers the government to take action against them.
Dhruv Rathee, who is a strong critic of the Modi administration and the BJP, has over 24 million followers on YouTube alongside over 2.8 million followers on X and over 12 million followers on Instagram.
The Yogi Adityanath government’s social media policy has drawn sharp criticism from the internet users and the opposition parties.