‘Karikku Zero’ — Be wary of ‘apolitical’ news
I have always been wary of those who claim to be apolitical, for more often than not they end up with the right wing before long. ‘Karikku’ is a web-series I enjoy, except for some of their episodes. Now this wildly popular group is launching a new platform called ‘Karikku Zero’, with the tagline ‘Zero politics, but information’.
Even closing our eyes to the poor grammar, there is something deeply troubling about this model. For, there is no information without its inherent politics. There is politics in what you choose to say, what you choose not to say and in how you present it.
For instance, one of the first items they put up in their instagram page was an infographic on how Kerala is the state with the most number of active COVID-19 cases. A graph has also been plotted to show this fact. However, there is no other information, on the number of tests, a comparison with other states or any other information. Just putting this out there without any such info is like providing a gift for the sanghi whatsapp university. There clearly is a lot of politics in this form of conveying information, even if you advertise it as ‘zero politics’.
What should worry us more is when we connect this to the way Karikk webseries now makes money, by intelligent product placement eithin their series. They have endorsed everything from gyms to investment and online loan schemes. What if they decide to extend the same model to this “zero politics, information” outlet? What if the they are not endorsing products, but ideas or ideologies not overtly, but covertly, as subliminal messages?
With their huge reach among the youth, especially among those of an impressionable age, such messaging could have a dangerously wide reach. That the first news (info) item they have shared is about Elon Musk becoming the richest person in the world does not give one much hope regarding the direction they are going to take. Now, that’s a man who openly cheered on the US-engineered coup in Bolivia in 2019, tweeting “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it”, because there are lithium deposites be mined from Bolivia!
