Twitter India is often in the news for all the wrong reasons as the platform is often found to muzzle the voices of the right-wing. Jack Dorsey’s visit to India was also mired in controversy as Jack was found promoting a poster calling to “Stop Brahminical Patriarchy” and after much outrage, Twitter was forced to issue a clarification. The left-liberals have gamed the platform and often force Twitter to tow its line after creating an outrage and the recent case of Dilip Mandal is a testament to this fact.
It all started with Dilip Mandal who is a columnist at Shekhar Gupta’s The Print moved to label Twitter as a platform which reeks of caste discrimination as the entitled Mandal hadn’t yet received a blue tick. The liberals wasted no time and Mandal’s tweet went viral in no time. Nitin Meshram, a Supreme Court lawyer joined the bandwagon and accused Twitter India of discriminating against SC-ST-OBC activists in suspending & verifying their accounts. He further claimed that Twitter lacks uniform rules & therefore, attempts to suppress Dalit, OBC, & Tribal activists by unequal reference to its rules. Mandal’s account was restricted after his tweet attacking the platform and after much outrage, his account was restored.
https://twitter.com/pratap_abhay07/status/1191255429550092289?s=20
Mandal who has no qualms in working with the upper-caste Shekhar Gupta tried to stoke communal tensions by claiming that the media is against people from lower-caste. After spending considerable resources to bully micro-blogging platform and accusing them of ‘Brahmnavad’, Mandal got his coveted blue tick. ThePrint in its article claims that Mandal secured the blue-tick after the publication’s efforts but Mandal on Twitter said that he secured the blue tick without even asking for it or the necessary documents. He then resorted to blackmail Twitter and coaxed them to give 500 blue ticks to people from the SC-ST-OBC community and he has now threatened that ‘Bhim Army’ is about to reach Mumbai office of Twitter to ‘shut it down’.
The case of Mandal again proves that the micro-blogging platform has absolutely no set of rules when it comes to handing out blue ticks as its policy is in a complete mess. If one is left-liberal then verification badges are handed out freely. Twitter India seems to be easily influenced by outrage and its move to first suspend and then hand out the verification badge to Mandal in no time only exposes Twitter’s muddled policy.