The relations between the ruling BJP government and social media are sour as of late, with the government reacting harshly to any content that is critical of its actions. On Monday, the government took it one step further, after a team of Delhi Police Special Cell carried out search operations at the offices of Twitter India in the National Capital Region (NCR) in connection with the “manipulated tweets” flagged by Twitter.
It has been reported that the raids were being conducted in the Lado Sarai, Delhi, and Gurugram offices of Twitter India.
The micro-blogging site had incurred the government’s ire after it had flagged BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra’s tweet on May 21 regarding the “Congress toolkit” as “manipulated media.” In response, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had written a strong letter to Twitter regarding the same. Today, it was reported that the Delhi Police had sent a notice to Twitter demanding an explanation for their adding the “manipulated media” tag, especially when the matter was still under investigation by law.
“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 officer from the Special Cell.
According to a statement by the Delhi police, they are enquiring into a complaint “in which clarification is sought from the Twitter regarding the classification of a tweet by Sambit Patra as ‘manipulative’. It appears that Twitter has some information that is not known to us on the basis of which they have classified it as such. This information is relevant to the inquiry. Special Cell which is conducting the inquiry wants to find out the truth. Twitter which has claimed to know the underlying truth should clarify.” It is thus clear that the police want the popular social media platform to come forward with the reason as to why they had tagged the tweet as “manipulated media.”
The government insists that the social media website has taken an arbitrary and unilateral decision regarding the flagging of the tweet.
According to Delhi PRO Chinmoy Biswal, the team had been sent to Twitter India’s office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of a routine process. This was required to ascertain who the right person was to serve a notice since replies by Twitter India were ambiguous.
The government has been harsh on tweets (or any other content on social media) that have criticized it or its actions. The toolkit is the latest row it has had with Twitter after it had crossed swords with the micro-blogging site over the ban of accounts earlier this year, during the infamous farmers protests.
