The Indian government has expressed strong objection to Twitter for classifying tweets by Indian politicians as \u201cmanipulated media,\u201d and separately asked social media firms to remove posts that refers to an \u201cIndian variant\u201d of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
The first notice comes two days after Twitter labeled a tweet from Sambit Patra<\/a>, the spokesperson of India\u2019s ruling party BJP, as \u201cmanipulated media.\u201d In the tweet, Patra claimed that Congress, the leading opposition party in India, was using a so-called \u201ctoolkit\u201d to derail the Indian government\u2019s efforts against the coronavirus pandemic. Alt News, a leading fact-checking organization in India, debunked Patra\u2019s claim<\/a>.<\/p>\n Twitter also labeled similar tweets posted by Priti Gandhi (who oversees BJP\u2019s social media presence), Sunil Deodhar (National Secretary of the BJP), Vinay Sahasrabuddhe (Member of Parliament of India representing state of Maharashtra and also part of BJP), and Kuljeet Singh Chahal (General Secretary of BJP in Delhi). New Delhi\u2019s notice didn\u2019t mention any politician by name nor did it identify any tweets.<\/p>\n In the notice, the Indian government said Twitter chose to designate tweets as \u201cmanipulated\u201d \u201cprejudicially\u201d even though an investigation hadn\u2019t been conducted, and also \u201casked\u201d Twitter to remove such tags in the interest of \u201cfairness and equity.\u201d<\/p>\n Twitter\u2019s action, the Indian government said, dilutes its credibility as a \u201cneutral and unbiased\u201d platform as well as puts a \u201cquestion mark on the status of Twitter as an \u2018Intermediary.\u2019 \u201d Twitter, Facebook, and any other social media firm with a certain size \u2014 over a few million users \u2014 are identified as an \u201cintermediary\u201d in India, according to a recently unveiled law,<\/a>\u00a0which provisions some of the world\u2019s toughest rules for internet companies.<\/p>\n A spokesperson of Twitter \u2014 which has labeled several politicians\u2019 tweets over the years to provide more context or correction, citing news media and independent fact checkers or its own technology, in many markets \u2014 told TechCrunch that the company had no comment.<\/p>\n In a separate letter to social media firms, India\u2019s IT ministry asked the firms to take down posts that refers to an \u201cIndian variant\u201d of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is completely FALSE. There is no such variant of Covid-19 scientifically cited as such by the World Health Organisation (WHO). WHO has not associated the term \u2018Indian Variant\u2019 with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports,\u201d the ministry wrote in the second letter, which was first reported by Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n The new notices underscore the dilemma Twitter faces in India, the world\u2019s second-largest internet market, where it has amassed more than 100 million users and has also backed local startups<\/a>. Facebook counts India as its biggest market by users, and has made even bigger bets on Indian firms<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Jack Dorsey-led company has grappled with several tough situations in India this year. After briefly complying with a New Delhi order early this year, the company faced heat from the government for restoring accounts that had posted tweets critical of the Indian government\u2019s policy<\/a> or the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n The two faced off again publicly last month after New Delhi ordered Twitter and Facebook to take down posts<\/a> that were critical of the government\u2019s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n Earlier this week Singapore ordered<\/a> Twitter and Facebook to issue corrections over what it said were \u201conline falsehoods\u201d that imply a new coronavirus variant had originated in the country.<\/p>\n