FT minister deletes tweet on ‘fake’ Covid-19 graph, apologises for mistake after being called out by social media users

KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 — Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa was forced to delete a tweet after being called out for sharing misinformation on two Covid-19 graphs.

He subsequently tendered an apology on the same social media platform.

Lawyer and political secretary to DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang, Syahredzan Johan, highlighted Annuar’s now missing tweet, after the latter faced intense criticism on his misunderstanding of the two charts.

Social media users attacked Annuar on what they labelled as his inability to differentiate between the two charts: one that highlighted cumulative infection cases and another showing cumulative cases per one million people.

Annuar had, in his now deleted tweet, also taken a jibe at DAP and its supporters by accusing them of sharing a fake chart.

The kerfuffle began after Annuar attempted to correct Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh who had shared a graph depicting Malaysia as being the second nation after India, in terms of infection numbers.

Both graphs were posted on Our World in Data, with statistics sourced from the Covid-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

In one of the graphs shared by Fuziah, Malaysia’s ranking was shown to be second to India, based on new cases per one million people, as of May 21.

Annuar rejected her claim and also attempted to school the PKR lawmaker by sharing another graph showing Malaysia to be in a much lower ranking.

“Study this chart, YB,” Annuar tweeted and tagged Fuziah.

He also shared another chart showing cumulative cases that was shared by Fuziah that he labelled fake, describing it pointedly as “widely shared by DAP and supporters”.

Fuziah then pointed out that cumulative cases and cumulative cases per million people were not the same.

This led to a barrage of criticisms levelled towards Annuar, who was trolled by social media users.

Annuar later apologised on Twitter.

“Many charts were spread..a little confusing..when checked, the result of findings were different. I was forced to delete my posting in the morning earlier as checks found that my update was confusing. I apologise,” he tweeted.