Following a letter written by the Congress party to Twitter asking them to permanently suspend the accounts of BJP leaders for allegedly “spreading misinformation” after the “Toolkot” fiasco, the social media giant has flagged the ‘toolkit expose’ tweet of BJP leader Sambit Patra as ‘manipulated media’.
On Thursday (20 May), the Congress party in a letter to Twitter asked for permanent suspension of the accounts of BJP president JP Nadda, Union minister Smriti Irani, and BJP leaders Sambit Patra and BL Santosh for sharing the alleged “forged” document.
In the letter to Twitter, the Congress had said senior functionaries of the BJP were “grossly misusing” Twitter and this has led to “large-scale dissemination of false information and has the potential to cause social unrest in the country”.
We've formally written to @Twitter seeking suspension of Twitter accounts of BJP leaders who are indulging in spreading forged documents attributing to Congress.
— Rohan Gupta (@rohanrgupta) May 20, 2021
While an FIR has already been lodged, the independent fact-checkers too have blown the lid off BJP's propaganda. pic.twitter.com/DeVUO585l3
Immediately, Twitter marked Dr Sambit Patra’s tweets exposing Congress’ links to the toolkit as ‘Manipulated Media’.
In its policies section, Twitter said, “We may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated. In addition, you may not share deceptively altered media on Twitter in ways that mislead or deceive people about the media’s authenticity where threats to the physical safety or other serious harm may result.”
Twitter has claimed that the tweets have violated its “Synthetic and manipulated media policy” but this action can only be called a unilateral attempt to silence one side by labeling that the BJP leader was manipulative.
The toolkits allegedly prepared by the research department of the Congress party talks about carrying out PR exercises with the help of “Friendly Journalists” and “Social Media Influencers” to malign the Modi Government and the Kumbh Mela.
The document titled ‘Cornering Narendra Modi & Covid Mismanagement’ begins by highlighting how the ‘Kumbh mela’ is to be used to malign the Hindu festival while calling Eid as a ‘happy gathering’. The “toolkit” suggests politicizing the congregation by repeatedly labeling it as a ‘super spreader’.
The toolkit created alleged by the AICC states “Use the phrase Indian Strain whenever talking of new mutant. Social Media volunteers can call it Modi Strain,“.
It also gives instructions to ‘dismantle the image of Modi’ by ‘targeting Gujarat’ and by using ‘dramatic pictures of dead bodies and cremation’.
It also says how international media can be used to attack PM Modi and also using ‘liberal intellectuals’ to attack PM CARES’.
The Congress party has said that it has filed a case against BJP president J P Nadda and spokesperson Sambit Patra.
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