It took one tweet from scientist and columnist Anand Ranganathan to make us chuckle on an otherwise boring Sunday. He posted a screenshot of a parody account Times How, which cited a fake quote by Congress IT cell head Divya Spandana that said Congress IT cell has taken it up with Twitter to take down all accounts posting Rahul Gandhi jokes, memes videos and even instructed Twitter not to allow any BJP related trends on Twitter. Since a lot of content posted on parody pages appears real, because India is a great country and Indians are very well capable of making bizarre claims, many people have mistaken the parody pages for real.
Anand Ranganathan quoted the said tweet which made it appear he had also fallen for the parody account, mistaking it for real news.
https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/985501872743178240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
If you look at his tweet, he has left ample hints on what he is trying to convey. However, many people still fell for this, including abusive troll masquerading as a journalist, Swati Chaturvedi.
https://twitter.com/bainjal/status/985511185343827968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Founding Editor of leftist propaganda website, The Wire, too could not understand the satire.
https://twitter.com/bombaywallah/status/985545140172292098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Former editor of Business World even accused Ranganathan, who has called out the hypocrisy of so-called liberals many times, of being a lover of fake news.
https://twitter.com/tjoseph0010/status/985522895790198784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Self-proclaimed ‘fact-checker’ and co-founder of leftist website AltNews, who runs a ‘parody’ page on Facebook Unofficial: Subramanian Swamy, and has earlier been caught spreading lies, too could not spot satire.
https://twitter.com/moronhumor/status/985562016776642561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
When the irony was pointed out, he deleted his tweet without any explanation.
Considering how believable the parody appeared and how satire is not everyone’s cup of tea, we don’t really blame them for this.
Ranganathan then explained the hidden meaning of his tweet in a subsequent tweet.
https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/985528365208743936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Even then, instead of accepting they fell for a joke, some ‘journalists’ were so hurt that they couldn’t get themselves to accept they got played.
https://twitter.com/bainjal/status/985545764331048960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
With this, on a summery Monday morning, I offer jasmine flowers and a slice of Mysore Pak to Ranga Uncle.