Late last night, Delhi police visited Twitter’s India’s office in the national capital and Gurugram. Initially, it was thought to be a raid, but it was just a visit to hand over a notice to the social network company.
The special cell of cops wanted to hand over a notice to Twitter’s India’s managing director regarding an ongoing investigation for tagging some tweets from the spokesperson and leaders of the country’s ruling part, the BJP, as ‘manipulated media.
Friends look at the #CongressToolKit in extending help to the needy during the Pandemic!
More of a PR exercise with the help of “Friendly Journalists” & “Influencers” than a soulful endeavour.
Read for yourselves the agenda of the Congress:#CongressToolKitExposed pic.twitter.com/3b7c2GN0re— Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 18, 2021
But the team found that these locations were closed as Twitter’s employees have been working remotely amid the coronavirus pandemic. There’s a valid question as to why this notice wasn’t served through a post or an email. As noted by ANI, The Delhi Police justified this by saying that “replies by Twitter India MD had been very ambiguous.”
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
Twitter has refused to comment on this incident for now.
The Delhi police team went to Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of routine process. This was necessitated as it was to ascertain who the right person was to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD had been very ambiguous: Sources
— ANI (@ANI) May 24, 2021
The tweets in question, alleged the Congress, the country’s major opposition party, of creating a digital guide — now known as “toolkit” across the country — as a plot to damage the government’s efforts to curb the current surge of the COVID-19 cases. In one of the tweets shown above, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) spokesperson also said that Congress’ relief work was nothing but a PR stunt.
However, Alt News, an Indian fact-checking website, claimed that the document shown in the tweet was created on a forged letterhead. Soon after this report came out, Twitter applied its “manipulated media” label on tweets with this document. In response, India asked the social network to remove these labels.
this "manipulated media" tag removed? None. Twitter can tag whatever it wants, whoever it wants, whenever it wants. It's their platform. Govt can only request, not order for the tag to be removed AFAIK.
3. There is a suggestion from the ANI tweets that as per MEITY,this puts
3/
— Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) May 21, 2021
Twitter has been in a constant battle with the Indian government this year. The firm first blocked and then unblocked several tweets from prominent accounts related to the farmer’s protest in February.
After this incident, the government threatened that if Twitter doesn’t follow the country’s rules and laws, the company’s employees could face penal action. All eyes are now on Twitter to see if it can stand its ground amidst this administration’s fierce campaign to protect its image online.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.