Twitter has finally unlocked Rahul Gandhi’s account, a week after it had locked it for posting a controversial tweet, posting pictures of the family of a nine-year-old victim of alleged rape and murder in Delhi. The company had declared that the tweet violated its platform’s rules.
Just as BJP was finally warming up to Twitter after declaring that the platform has now come into accordance with the new IT rules of the country, a new feud started with the opposition Congress party. The leader of the party-Rahul Gandhi, posted the pictures of the family of a new year old that was allegedly raped and murdered in Delhi. This, according to Twitter, violated the rules of its platform, which led to Gandhi’s account being locked for several days.
Other party leaders joined the cause, and also started posting the same image, which led to their accounts being locked as well. Yesterday, as the final nail in the coffin, Indian National Congress’s official account was also locked, which led to Rahul Gandhi posting a video on his YouTube channel, claiming that Twitter was operating on a bias.
However, Twitter claimed that the accounts were locked because the image in question violated its rules, which are enforced “judicially and impartially”.
Now, after days of back and forth, the social media platform has finally restored the accounts in question, after it received formal consent letters from the individuals depicted in the photos that were shared.
“As part of the appeal process, Rahul Gandhi has submitted a copy of the formal consent and authorisation letter to use the referenced image via our India grievance channel,” the spokesperson for Twitter said. “We have followed the necessary due diligence process to review the appeal in order to protect the safety and privacy of the affected individuals. We have updated our enforcement action based on the consent provided by the people depicted in the image.”
That being said, even though the accounts themselves have been restored, the tweet in question will not be made available in India. The spokesperson says that this is because it “may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in accordance with valid legal provisions under the Indian law(s).”
This follows a long list of disputes that the company has had with the other end of the political spectrum, led by the BJP government. The farmers’ protest started a chain of events that led to Twitter’s offices being visited by Delhi Police, leading up to the platform losing its immunity as a significant social media intermediary.
However, this political nature of decision making is not novel for Twitter, which also took a hands on approach to ex US President Donald Trump and his tweets, labelling his tweets and locking his account on several occasions.
