Ravi Shankar Prasad corners Twitter; compares Congress Toolkit & Ghaziabad hate video case

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has fired a question to Twitter as it has been caught in the eye of a storm for unilaterally tagging BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra's tweet as manipulative media and carrying out its own 'fact-check' despite being an intermediary. Ravi Shankar Prasad asked if Twitter has a norm of declaring a particular tweet as manipulative or otherwise, then why wasn't the same norm applied in the Ghaziabad case?

Ravishankar Prasad, who is also the Minister of Information Technology, called out Twitter's partisan behaviour and compared the two incidents - Sambit Patra's tweet being tagged as manipulative media and the Ghaziabad's Loni incident not being tagged or taken down despite being fallacious in nature.

The Union Law Minister stated that other platforms have followed the guidelines but Twitter hasn't while mentioning that the social media platforms were given three months to comply, failing which Twitter has lost the protection which intermediaries have.

"Three months exhausted in May but we still gave them extra time. When Indian companies do business in foreign countries, do they follow the rules of other countries or not?" It is the issue between Twitter and the users of Twitter and not between Twitter and the Govt Of India or the BJP. Under the garb of all this, if you think you cannot comply with the guidelines, it is unacceptable. If India is a democracy it is equally entitled to safeguard its digital sovereignty," said Ravi Shankar Prasad while speaking with ANI.

The Congress 'toolkit' controversy

BJP's Sambit Patra on May 18 alleged that Congress has released a toolkit named 'Cornering Narendra Modi & BJP on COVID Mismangament'-- to target the Centre as the nation was battling with the COVID-19 pandemic. In the alleged toolkit, the Congress party has laid down a series of actions that should be taken by its party leaders, in tandem with certain media publications to 'corner the Modi government and various BJP governments in the country.' The alleged toolkit mentioned about strategies to defame PM Narendra Modi and the Government of India using the COVID-19 pandemic.

The alleged Toolkit document urged volunteers to use phrases such as 'Modi strain', ‘Missing’ Amit Shah, ‘Quarantined’ Jaishankar, ‘Sidelined’ Rajnath Singh, ‘Insensitive’ Nirmala Sitharaman.

Sambit Patra said the toolkit strategised to use resources created on social media to question Modi’s incompetence from handles that looked like Modi or BJP supporters. Moreover, the toolkit also mentioned roping in foreign publications, according to Sambit Patra. However, Sambit Patra's tweet was tagged as manipulative media by Twitter, sparking a row over Twitter's partisan behaviour.

What is the Ghaziabad fake video case?

On June 15, a controversy broke out on Twitter after several news media outlets and handles peddled a 'communal narrative' over a video of an elderly man being assaulted in Uttar Pradesh. The video showed an elderly man Abdul Samad Saifi being assaulted and his beard being forcibly cut by unknown persons who it was alleged in the various tweets asked him to chant slogans of Jai Shri Ram and Vande Mataram.

Later, the investigation revealed that the man was assaulted by members of his own community after the 'amulets' that he made for them did not work. After several news publications gave the incident a communal spin, the UP police registered an FIR against Twitter, Twitter India, and 7 others over the video, accusing the social media platform of enabling 'criminal conspiracy' against the state.

FIR has been filed against actor Swara Bhasker, Md Asif Khan, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani and officials of Twitter India for spreading 'communal hatred' as Advocate Amit Acharya, the complainant alleged that the aforementioned individuals spread false information knowing that their tweets could have serious consequences. The advocate has also accused Twitter India and Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari of not taking down the fake narratives from their platform, potentially 'disturbing the peace and harmony' in the country.