Twitter could have been unintentionally embroiled in “curbing free and fair speech” in India, senior Congress chief Rahul Gandhi wrote to the platform’s CEO Parag Agarwal final month, claiming that his variety of followers on the platform has elevated. Because his account was quickly suspended in August. 2021.
Gandhi, in his letter dated December 27, 2021, mentioned Twitter mustn’t develop into a “pawn in the destruction of the idea of India” and argued that it “has a greater responsibility to ensure that it is actively involved in the development of authoritarianism”. Does not assist” India.”
Stating that the ideological battle between liberal democracy and authoritarianism is being formed on social media platforms the world over, he mentioned, “It puts a huge responsibility on those who are at the helm of companies like Twitter… I am yours.” I wish to carry consideration to this. I imagine there may be an unintentional complicity of Twitter in curbing free and truthful speech in India. ,
Gandhi claimed that “India’s institutional framework is under constant attack and has completely taken over the traditional mainstream media” which has been “widely discussed in India and abroad.”
“Hence, social media platforms like Twitter have develop into an essential channel to lift the problems of the folks and make the federal government accountable. Against this backdrop, it’s surprising that my Twitter follower progress has abruptly been suppressed. With virtually 20 million followers, my Twitter account has been very lively, including a mean of eight to 10 thousand new followers every single day.
“For example, in May 2021, my account got about 640,000 new followers. It remained so for several years till July 2021. Then something strange happened. Since August 2021, the average number of new monthly Twitter followers I have has dropped to almost zero. There has been a turning point after which my Twitter account seems to be paralyzed,” wrote the previous Congress president.
Gandhi additionally hooked up evaluation by “social media experts”.
He mentioned that in that point he had “raised the plight of a rape victim’s family in Delhi, stood in solidarity with the farmers and fought the government on many other human rights issues.”
“I’ve been credibly, prudently knowledgeable by folks on Twitter India that they’re underneath immense stress by the federal government to silence my voice. My account has additionally been blocked for a couple of days with none legitimate motive There have been many extra Twitter handles, together with Sarkar, who had tweeted related photos of the identical folks. None of those accounts have been blocked. My account was particularly focused,” he mentioned.
Gandhi’s Twitter account was “temporarily” suspended on August 8, 2021, a day after a photograph posted by him with the household of a nine-year-old Dalit rape sufferer was taken down by the microblogging web site.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
