On Monday, Delhi Police Special Cell dropped into Twitter offices in the NCR region to “serve a notice” to Twitter’s India head about why the “toolkit” shared by BJP’s national spokesperson Sambit Patra were labelled as “Manipulated Media.”
According to The Indian Express, Central government-controlled Delhi Police raided Twitter India’s Delhi and Gurugram office late on Monday evening to investigate the so-called Congress “toolkit” shared by BJP’s Sambit Patra.
“We want to know what information Twitter has about the toolkit and why they chose to give the ‘manipulated media’ label. Our team is conducting raids at their Delhi office in Mehrauli and their Gurgaon office on Golf Course Road,” said a senior Delhi Police officer, in a statement to The Indian Express.
TechCrunch notes that the Delhi Police team left the Gurugram office premises after an hour. The office was deserted due to the ongoing pandemic, so Delhi Police couldn’t find anyone to investigate. Additionally, the media outlet reported no employees were present in the offices at the time of the raid, as the teams are currently working remotely.
As of now, Twitter declined to comment on the matter.
This move comes after few days of Twitter labelling Sambit Patra’s “toolkit” tweet as “Manipulated Media”, after which “system” served a notice to Twitter to remove the label. In another news, the Central Government also ordered social media platforms to remove the posts referring to B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus as an “Indian variant.”Â
Delhi Police Raids Twitter Offices Because “System” Doesn’t Like Criticism
“Delhi Police is enquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from Twitter regarding the classification of a tweet by Shri Sambit Patra (BJP spokesman) as “manipulative.” It appears that Twitter has some information which is not known to us on the basis of which they have classified it as such,” Delhi Police said in a statement to AFP News Agency.
“This information is relevant to the enquiry. Special Cell, which is conducting the enquiry, wants to find out the truth. Twitter which has claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify.” “The Delhi police team went to Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of routine process. This was necessitated as we wanted to ascertain who is the right person to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD have been very ambiguous,” the statement reads further.
Last week BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra shared a tweet consisting of a document referred to as a “toolkit” from the opposition party Congress created to degrade Prime Minister Narendra Modi image across the globe for mishandling of the pandemic. However, Congress claims that BJP shared a forged version of another document that was not remotely related to the “COVID toolkit.” Moreover, Alt News found out that there were several discrepancies in the image shared by Sambit Patra and other BJP members.
Twitter introduced the “Manipulative Media” label back in February, which is used to warn users about the images or video clips that have been heavily fabricated to change their context, which could “likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm.” For example, Twitter labelled several Trump tweets as “Manipulated Media” before it banned him from the platform.
Indian Government, or as it liked to be called, the “system,” has been trying to take over the freedom of speech over social media platforms for quite some time now. Earlier, the Central Government ordered Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to take down the posts criticizing the “system” of mishandling the pandemic. Back in March, the Government threatened to jail Facebook, Instagram and Twitter employees if they fail to remove posts related to farmers protest. Meanwhile, Twitter permanently blocked more than 500 accounts after receiving a notice of noncompliance from the “system.”
Yes, this sounds concerning because people are losing their lives here in India while the “system” is busy shutting up its citizens because “system” doesn’t like criticism.
When western tech giants take India’s democracy too seriously.
and tries to do the right thing