Congress to Twitter: Tag as ‘manipulated media’ tweets of Union ministers

The Congress on Tuesdaywrote to Twitter urging it to tag as “manipulated media” tweets of Union ministers for “spreading false and malicious propaganda” related to the alleged toolkit, which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has claimed was made to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi and build a biased narrative over Covid-19 management, and the Central Vista project.

This comes days after Twitter last week flagged as manipulated media BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra’s tweet with details of the alleged Congress toolkit. Several BJP leaders and Union ministers amplified Patra’s tweet.

The government has written to Twitter to express its displeasure over the tagging of Patra’s tweet. The Delhi Police on Monday said they have sought a clarification from Twitter in connection with the tagging. Police officers also visited Twitter’s offices and to issue summons to Twitter’s managing director Manish Maheshwari related to the probe into the toolkit.

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In his letter to Twitter, Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala has cited links to the tweets of 11 Union ministers including Piyush Goyal, Harsh Vardhan, Ramesh Pokhriyal, Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Smriti Irani for action. “You would appreciate that the forged, fabricated material and the claims made under the malicious #CongressToolkitExposed, by the various ministers above-named, is identical to the material that has already marked as ‘manipulative media’, by Twitter, on various accounts including that of the BJP Spokesperson- Mr. Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj,” he wrote. “...people tend to believe ‘true’ and take on face value, any information that is put up directly by a Union Minister of the Government of India through his/her official/verified Twitter account.” Surjewala argued it becomes even more important that their tweets are also classified as manipulated media. He added ministers should be dealt with the same yardstick.

Twitter defines any media (videos, audios, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated as manipulated. Tweets are labelled under this category when they are “likely to cause harm”.

Congress last week wrote to Twitter seeking the removal of BJP chief J P Nadda, Irani, Patra, and B L Santosh’s tweets about the toolkit and to permanently suspend their accounts. Two Congress leaders have filed a complaint seeking a first information report against BJP leaders for allegedly “forging documents, and circulating fabricated material on Twitter under the hashtag CongressToolkitExposed.”

There was no immediate response from BJP or Twitter.