Ahul calls Twitter a biased platform
Congress leader ul Gandhi on Friday quesd Twitter’s neutrality while ng it “a biased platform” h “listens to what the govent says”. andhi accused the company terfering with the country’s ical process, attacking its ocratic structure, and wond whether the people were g to allow companies to e their politics “beholden to overnment”. He reiterated a’s democracy is under k and they are not allowed eak in Parliament. “...the ia are being controlled,” he in a 1:34 minute video ed on Youtube. e criticism came a day after ter temporarily locked ly 5,000 accounts, including e of several senior leaders of arty and its official handle they shared a photograph andhi’s meeting a minor victim’s family in Delhi.
AGandhi’s account was locked on Saturday for the same reason. Twitter was “a ray of light” as it provided space for putting out their opinions, the Congress leader said in the video. “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,” Gandhi alleged.
Terming the temporary suspension as an “attack on the democratic structure of the country”, he said,” 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.”
Gandhi said the locking of his account was not an attack on him but on his 20 million followers.
In response to Congress’s criticism, a Twitter spokesperson on Thursday maintained they enforce rules “judiciously and impartially” for everyone. “We have taken proactive action on several hundred Tweets that posted an image that violated our Rules and may continue to do so in line with our range of enforcement options.”
Congress and Twitter have been at loggerheads since the company locked Gandhi’s account.
Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal rejected the suggestion that Twitter is acting under government pressure. “Twitter even suspended former information technology minister (Ravi Shankar Prasad)’s handle (over alleged copyright infringement in June) too. When the government was trying to fix the accountability of the social media giant and regulate it, Congress opposed the action. For anything and everything, they blame the Modi government.”