NEW DELHI: Micro-blogging platform Twitter finally unlocked after a week the handles of the Congress and its leaders including that of Rahul Gandhi and Randeep Singh Surjewala. However, it demonstrated the Congress’s changing perception about the social media platform in a matter of three months.
Ironically, the same Congress which has been lashing out at Twitter had hailed it for being independent in May when a major controversy around it took place for the first time.
It all started with BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeting a post which alleged it was a toolkit devised by the Congress to defame the Modi government’s efforts to mitigate the people’s worries during the second wave of Covid-19.
The alleged toolkit was a document supposedly written on the Congress's letter head which consisted of a number of instructions for party workers to use on social media. It was believed to be used to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of disastrous handling of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A large number of BJP leaders including party president JP Nadda and Union ministers such as Smriti Irani and Piyush Goyal shared the alleged toolkit of the Congress.
The Congress lodged complaints in Delhi and Raipur police stations and also wrote to Twitter.
On the Congress's complaint, Twitter labelled Patra’s tweet as “manipulated media”. It was a huge embarrassment not just for Patra but also the BJP.
This was followed by raids at Twitter’s offices at Gurgaon and the national capital by the Delhi Police.
The Congress not just called the Modi government out but also defended and lent its support to Twitter.
Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, on May 25, said on Twitter, "Cowardly raid on @Twitter unleashed by Delhi Police exposes lameduck attempts to hide the fraudulent toolkit by BJP leaders."
He called the raids as attempts to "murder" freedom of speech and alleged that they exposed the BJP’s guilt. He also released a video to put forth his views and alleged that the "subjugation of free speech, the attempts to stifle every voice that is a dissenting voice against this government and the state-sponsored fraudulent means to propagate and to instill fear continue unabated in the Modi government".
Surjewala said, "Why, the guilty people are sitting in BJP headquarters and in the seat of power, but you are raiding Twitter's offices in Delhi and Gurgaon, what is the reason there of?... Please remember Mr Prime Minister that free speech and rights to express opinion is our fundamental right in this country."
He further said, "You can't subjugate the constitution, you can't stifle free speech and you will not be able to suppress the voice of the young or voice of people of this country."
Now cut to August 7.
Twitter locked Rahul Gandhi’s handle for revealing the identity of the nine-year-old girl from Delhi who was allegedly gang-raped and killed. Rahul had posted photographs of the victim’s family on August 4.
The Congress and its leaders protested against Twitter’s action pointing out that the National Commission of Scheduled Castes (NCSC) and its member Anju Bala had also done the same before Rahul did but Twitter did not take any action against them.
The Congress and its leaders tweeted the photographs of the victim’s family again to put their points across. Twitter later locked them too. It was officially stated that handles of 23 Congress leader and seven of the party were locked. However, Congress social media chief Rohan Gupta claimed that about 5000 handles were locked by Twitter.
Rahul Gandhi took to Instagram and Facebook to post his messages against Twitter. He said, “Our democracy is under attack. We are not allowed to speak in Parliament. The media is controlled. And I thought there was a ray of light where we could freely express ourselves on Twitter. But obviously, that's not the case.”
His younger sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too lashed out at Twitter. She and other Congress leaders replaced their respective profile pictures with that of Rahul Gandhi to express solidarity with him.
In two tweets, she said, “Is Twitter following its own policy for the suspension of Congress leaders' accounts or the Modi government’s? Why hadn’t it locked the account of the SC Commission that had tweeted similar photos before any of our leaders did? By locking Congress leaders' accounts en masse, Twitter is blatantly colluding with the stifling of democracy by the BJP government in India.”
Continuing his attack on Twitter, Rahul Gandhi released a video statement on August 13, this time on YouTube. He said, “By shutting down my Twitter they are interfering in our political process. A company is making its business to define our politics. And as a politician I don't like that. This is an attack on the democratic structure of the country. This is not an attack on Rahul Gandhi. This is not you know simply shutting Rahul Gandhi down. I have 19-20 million followers. You are denying them the right to an opinion. That’s what you are doing.”
Questioning Twitter’s neutrality, he said this is not only patently unfair, this is their breaching the idea that Twitter is a neutral platform. “And for the investors this is a very dangerous thing because taking sides in the political contest has repercussions for Twitter.”
In a hard-hitting statement, Rahul Gandhi said, “It’s obvious now that Twitter is actually not a neutral, objective platform. It is a biased platform. It's something that listens to what the government of the day says.”
“As Indians, we have to ask the question: are we going to allow companies just because they are beholden to the Government of India to define our politics for us? Is that what this is going to come to? Or are we going to define our politics on our own? That's the real question here,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi and the Congress had supported Twitter when it took action against the BJP leaders earlier. But now they are brandishing it as biased when the micro-blogging site has taken action against them.
