Mumbai: Actress Swara Bhasker yesterday asked Zomato to pull down ads from Arnab Goswami’s Republic Bharat.
She tweeted, ” Hey @zomatoin @zomato @deepigoyal I’m your regular customer.. do u plan to #DefundTheHate & pull your ads from hate espousing channels like @Republic_Bharat ? I’m not okay with my money even indirectly funding this kind of communal bigoted hate! Pls let your consumers know”.
Zomato responds to Swara Bhasker
Responding to the tweet, the food delivery company wrote, ” Hi Swara, please note, we don’t endorse any content except our own. That being said, we are looking into this”.
How supporters of Arnab Goswami reacted
Reacting over it, supporters of Arnab Goswami threatened to boycott Zomato.
One of them wrote, “I am urging my friends to plz stop ordering via zomato”.
Another person wrote, ” Hi @zomato @zomatocare @zomatoin we are disconnecting with you for siding / endorsing hate mongerers and anti nationals like @swara Congrats…you just lost atleast 20,000 business yearly from a loyal customer…uninstalling the app”.
It seems that the netizens are divided into groups. One is urging company to pull down its ads from Republic Bharat whereas, others threatening to boycott Zomato if it withdraws support to the TV channel.
However, Zomato has not issued any official statement on the ads on Republic Bharat.
Open letter by ex-Bureaucrats
Earlier, former Bureaucrats who have worked with the Central and State Governments in different capacities wrote an open letter to companies urging them not to give advertisements to TV channels that are spreading divisiveness.
They alleged, “Many well-established corporates have shown no hesitation in advertising their products on media channels which have made it a practice to ramp up their viewership by spewing hatred, creating divisions on the basis of religion and caste, manufacturing false narratives and making criminals out of law-abiding people. It is possible that these corporates have not given sufficient thought to how their acts have unwittingly strengthened the forces which divide the nation through deliberate false propaganda”.
Highlighting the impact of advertising on channels spreading divisiveness they wrote, “Advertising on channels which spread divisiveness is bad not only on moral grounds but bad for business as well”.