Instagram faces criticism for showing objectionable Lord Shiva GIF, FIR lodged in Delhi

Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram has found itself in yet another controversy after several users of the social media platform lodged a protest against the app for showing Lord Shiva in a wrong light.

In a shocking incident, a GIF of Lord Shiva was seen with a wine glass in one hand and a mobile phone in the other hand on Instagram. This drew severe criticisms as many users took to Twitter to express their displeasure over the new GIF that seems to have hurt the Hindu sentiments.

Earlier, ecommerce platform Amazon and Google faced the ire for deeply hurting the sentiments of the people of Karnataka. Amazon had a bikini that had colours of the Karnataka flag and emblem and it was up for sale on its Canada website. Similarly was criticised for a search result that showed Kannada as the world's ‘ugliest’ language.

A Delhi resident has filed an FIR against Instagram and its CEO over hurting Hindu sentiments and according to the complainant, these stickers were not uploaded by any social media users but by the app itself. Besides this, many other complaints have been raised for this objectionable GIF available on Instagram.

A Twitter user wrote, “It’s really unacceptable and very disrespectful.”

This incident happened at a time when the government had asked social media platforms to comply with the new IT Rules. Twitter is one such exception which has not yet accepted the rules and has asked for more time to follow them.

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