Actor Zahid Ahmed has apologised for inflammatory comments about social media platforms he made on a podcast earlier this week.

On an episode of Ahmad Ali Butt’s podcast, he said: “I hate it, I think it’s human beings’ most evil, most destructive invention and I think they will burn in hell, the creators of all these platforms.” Soon after the podcast was uploaded, his comments went viral, with many believing what he said was about social media content creators.

The backlash against Ahmed was swift and fierce as a number of social media content creators, including some big names such as Ken Doll and Alishbah Anjum, called him out for his hypocritical stance coming from someone in the entertainment industry.

This week, Ahmed shared a video clarifying that he was not talking about content creators. “I was talking about social media platform creators, not content creators, meaning the ones who created the platforms. I am very ashamed. In the heat of the moment, I said too much, because only God has the right to declare whether someone will go to hell or not. And it was very important for me to accept this, because there are a lot of people, especially young people, who listen to my content. I will make sure this never happens again,” he said.