Micro-blogging platform Twitter after successfully influencing the US Presidential elections has set its eyes on India as its actions indicate a strong desire to ensure the defeat of the Modi government come 2024. The micro-blogging platform has now been acting as an extended arm of the Indian National Congress as it has now flagged tweets related to the Congress toolkit by multiple BJP leaders as “manipulated media”. This is not the first instance that the platform has crossed a line and certainly not the last time. Twitter needs to be taught a lesson in the language it understands.
In what reveals some strong and influential external hand backing behind Twitter’s open defiance against the Indian government, after the government’s “strong communication” to remove the ‘manipulated media’ tag from Sambit Patra’s tweet on the Congress toolkit, five more BJP leaders’ tweet on the infamous Congress toolkit has been flagged as ‘manipulated media’.
The tag was added to tweets by Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, BJP national social media in-charge Priti Gandhi, Andhra Pradesh co-in-charge Sunil Deodhar, BJP media panelist Charu Pragya and BJP Delhi general secretary Kuljeet Singh Chahal.
Imagine, a global platform like Twitter relying on the fact-checkers who have a penchant for turning stones into wallets. It is not as if Twitter is unaware of the credibility of Congress propagandists masquerading as fact-checkers, it is just the fact Twitter India is now a part of the elaborate ecosystem with the single-minded goal of removing the Modi government by hook or crook.
Make no mistake, Twitter is carefully planning its moves in a bid to provoke the Indian government into doing something that would grab global headlines. Never mind the fact that last year, Twitter displayed Jammu and Kashmir as a part of Hitler’s reincarnation of the Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China. The microblogging platform first started out to hit the Right-Wing influencers when it tagged BJP’s Amit Malviya’s tweet on farmers’ protests as ‘manipulated media’.
Now, after initially flagging Sambit Patra’s tweet as ‘manipulative content’, the platform promptly received stern communication from the Indian government which culminated in the social media giant getting a kick out of it and went on to flag the tweets on the Congress toolkit of BJP leaders with a sizeable presence on Twitter. It is pertinent to note that as of now Twitter hasn’t flagged the tweets of senior BJP leaders like Smriti Irani and JP Nadda at all. Twitter is not pursuing truth, it is just testing the water, provoking one step at a time, to check the tolerance limit of the Central government.
Twitter is well aware that by this move, it is violating multiple Indian laws and can be held responsible for all the content on the platform. There’s so much anti-Semitic and anti-Hindu content on Twitter with a case in point being with radical Islamist Sharjeel Usmani whose account wasn’t suspended despite a host of anti-Hindu tweets. If the Indian government willed, Twitter India’s executives would spend more time defending themselves in the Indian courts than at their comfy plus offices such has been their violation of the Indian laws.
Stern action against Twitter will grab global headlines – something which will play right into the hands of the Congress propaganda and their portrayal of PM Modi as the ‘fascist enabler’. Twitter could also be gradually paving the way for kicking out PM Modi from Twitter – a long-held demand and a wild dream of the Congress ecosystem. If the Indian government allows Twitter to continue with its actions unabated, it is almost certain that a global giant will become a major anti-Modi force come 2024.