Centre may summon Twitter officials over 'Manipulated' tag on Sambit Patra's toolkit tweet

After pulling up Twitter in a strong 'communication', the Government of India may now summon the officials of the microblogging website after it flagged the tweets of some Indian political leaders with reference to Congress' toolkit as “Manipulated Media", sources said.

Describing its act (of flagging tweets as 'Manipulated Media') as a  'prejudged, prejudiced, and deliberate attempt' to colour the ongoing investigation by the local law enforcement agency, the GoI in the communication issued earlier in the day, had asserted that such actions would dilute the credibility of Twitter as a ''neutral and unbiased' platform facilitating the exchange of views by the users, and suggested it remove the flags. The same is expected to be the 

Government of India Objects to Twitter for Using “Manipulated Media"

In its strong communication to Twitter issued earlier in the day, the Ministry has stated that a complaint has already been made by one of the concerned parties before a local law enforcement agency questioning the veracity of the toolkit and the same is under investigation. It said, "While the local law enforcement agency is undertaking the investigation to determine the veracity of the ‘tookit’, Twitter has unilaterally drawn a conclusion in this matter and arbitrarily tagged it as ‘Manipulated Media’," and went on to add "such tagging by Twitter appears prejudged, prejudiced and a deliberate attempt to colour the investigation by the local law enforcement agency."

"This action not only dilutes the credibility of Twitter as a neutral and unbiased platform facilitating the exchange of views by the users but also puts a question mark on the status of Twitter as an 'Intermediary', it concluded and went on to ask the social blogging site to remove the 'Manipulated Media' tags affixed prejudicially to certain tweets in recent days in the interests of fairness and equity.

It is pertinent to mention here that Twitter had flagged the Tweets of Sambit Patra on Thursday, the same day when Congress had written to the micro-blogging website seeking permanent suspension of the handles of BJP leaders including party president JP Nadda, MP Smriti Irani, Sambit Patra and others for allegedly creating unrest in the society by disseminating misinformation.

'Toolkit' controversy

Addressing a press briefing on Tuesday, Sambit Patra shared the contents of a purported toolkit and slammed Congress' attempts to spread misinformation in the country. He covered sections such as 'Politicising and Allowing Super Spreader Kumbh', 'Questions on PM CARES', 'Special treatment of Gujarat', 'Choosing vanity over people's lives', 'Amplify work of frontal Congress organizations' and 'Prime Minister Modi's image'. The document also urges volunteers to use phrases such as 'Modi strain', ‘Missing’ Amit Shah, ‘Quarantined’ Jaishankar, ‘Sidelined’ Rajnath Singh, ‘Insensitive’ Nirmala Sitharaman. 

The Congress has alleged that BJP sought to divert the attention from the Centre's "mammoth failure" in providing relief to the people of India. Claiming that BJP forged the letterhead of the AICC Research Department and printed false content on the same, it demanded action against the BJP leaders under the relevant sections of the IPC and the IT Act. As per the Congress party's research department head, a document on the Central Vista project does exist but doesn't carry the same pointers as the one posted by Patra. The veracity of the remainder of the internal research document remains unknown.

(Credit-AP/PTI)