Patanjali air cooler hoax spreads online with morphed images

Social media is abuzz once more, but this time with pictures which allege that Patanjali, the Ayurvedic brand helmed by Swami Ramdev, has introduced its own air cooler.

These pictures, usually featuring a cooler made with the Patanjali logo placed alongside Swami Ramdev’s image, have gone viral in no time.

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But there’s only one issue: it’s all fake.

Patanjali Ayurved has also denied these allegations officially. In a conversation with The Statesman, the firm confirmed that it has not released any air cooler. The pictures going viral are fake and false, a majority of them generated using artificial intelligence or edited in their digital forms to appear original.

Some of these images look quite believable on the surface. They have the name of the company prominently stamped onto generic air coolers and even provide professionally looking product descriptions at times. Some of the posts even make outlandish claims that the so-called Patanjali cooler operates on herbal technology or works with Ayurvedic means to cool rooms.

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But Patanjali has made it official: there is no such product like air cooler in their arsenal, and any connection of the brand with air coolers is entirely fictional.

This is not the first time that a big Indian brand has been pulled into online scams. With AI-generated content and easy image editing, fake ads and product launches tend to go viral before companies even get to deny them.

In the case of Patanjali, use of the image of Swami Ramdev adds to the credibility, particularly with the brand’s huge following of loyalists.

The incident serves as a reminder to all of us to stop and check before hitting that share button. Patanjali may have a whole array of herbal products, but air coolers? It’s hot air.