The morning is still good! Viral clip about 18% GST on ‘Good morning’ messages is satire

Hyderabad: a anonymous A newspaper clipping and video clip claiming that the government will impose 18% GST on ‘good morning’ messages from April 1, 2024 is widely circulating on social media.

The title of one of those tweets reads: “When April 1, 2024 rolls around, your morning may no longer be ‘good’! This clip says it. Hear. People sending good morning messages in #India are slowing down the ‘network’ so netizens will have to pay 18% GST for every GM message sent!

The headline on the newspaper clipping reads: “गुड मॉर्निंग मैसेज पर लगेगा 18% जीएसटी”, which loosely translates in English as “18% GST to be imposed on messages from Good morning.”

The clipping is shared with the caption ‘बंद करो गुड मॉर्निंग के मैसेज’ which translates to ‘Stop sending good morning messages’.

Secondly, in the ABP News clip, we can see its former anchor Abhisar Sharma informing about the government’s imposition of 18% GST in good morning messages from April 1.

Sending good morning messages is a custom in India, especially for older people. Millions of good morning posters and messages are shared every morning, either individually or in our family groups.

According to the viral newspaper clipping: “Lekhpal, Chief Secretary, Ministry of Mobile Communications, WhatsApp Messenger will track all the good morning messages you send. 18% GST has been fixed for such messages, therefore a bill will be generated at the end of the month and will have to be paid along with the mobile bill. The reason for the implementation of GST is the slowdown of the Internet.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the newspaper clipping is an old satirical report from 2018 and the ABP News image has been cropped to spread misinformation.

We conducted a search for relevant keywords and found the original extended version of the viral clip showing Abhisar Sharma informing about the imposition of GST on the ABP Live website dated March 20, 2018.

Taking a closer look at the video titled ‘Viral sach: Government to impose 18% GST on sending good morning messages on WhatsApp?’, we found that the report was aimed at showing the truth behind the viral claim. Debunking the viral news clipping, the ABP report confirmed that the newspaper clipping was a satirical article printed in the Navbharat Times newspaper with the tags ‘Bura na mano Holi hai’ dated March 2, 2018.

We also found the same report with the same images on the ABP News Facebook account.

Furthermore, ABP News and Dainik Bhaskar also published the same report which included the clipping from the Navbharat Times newspaper.

Lastly, the WhatsApp spokesperson also confirmed that the claim about GST in the good morning messages is false and no such announcement was made.

Hence, it is evident that the viral message is merely satire and is almost 6 years old.