Hours after tweets of several BJP leaders regarding an alleged “congress toolkit” was flagged as manipulated media, Centre has asked Twitter to remove the tags calling it “prejudicial, a clear overreach and unwarranted” . Taking strong exception to Twitter’s move, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) stated that the micro-blogging site unilaterally marks certain tweets as ‘Manipulative Media’, despite pending investigations in the matter before a law enforcement agency, news agency PTI reported quoting sources.
The tweets pertain to the ‘toolkit’ created to undermine, derail and demean the efforts of the government against the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. “This action not only dilutes the credibility of Twitter but also puts a question mark on the status of Twitter as an Intermediary”, the letter reads.
The government also made it clear that the social media platform cannot pass judgment when the issue is under investigation. Investigation will determine the veracity of the content and not Twitter, it has asserted while asking the microblogging platform not to interfere in the investigation process.
According to sources, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has written a strong communication to the global team of Twitter registering its objection to the ”manipulated media” tag on tweets made by some political leaders with reference to the toolkit allegedly created to undermine, derail and demean the efforts of the government against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Twitter has labelled as “manipulated media” a tweet of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra on the alleged toolkit prepared by the Congress to target the Modi government. Twitter says it “may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated.”
The Congress on Thursday wrote to Twitter asking it to permanently suspend the accounts of BJP leaders including party chief JP Nadda and Union minister Smriti Irani for allegedly “spreading misinformation and unrest in the society”. The opposition party has insisted that the toolkit documents flagged by the BJP are “fake” and has filed police complaint against its leaders. The Chhattisgarh police has registered an FIR to probe the matter.
The BJP has been attacking the Congress over some controversial content of the so-called toolkit BJP leaders, including Patra, have posted numerous tweets to attack the Congress over the toolkit.
