Keep Twitter out of politics

edia platforms in a democracy serve their purpose better when they act non-partisan, offering their consumers — the citizens — a holistic view of developments around them so that they can take informed decisions. If and when the platforms fail to do so, they fail democracy because uninformed or partially informed decisions do not reflect the real will of the people. It is incumbent upon the media platforms and political formations to play a fair game to advance the cause of democracy.

It’s against this essential nature of the dynamics between the media and political parties that one should view Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that the microblogging platform Twitter was interfering in Indian politics. What provoked the Congress leader was the decision of Twitter to suspend his account for sharing the pictures of the parents of the nine yearold girl who was raped and killed in the nation’s capital. Twitter had also suspended the accounts of the Congress Party and several others who shared Mr Gandhi’s tweet, holding that it went against Indian law as well as its own guidelines.

The BJP chose the occasion to get even with the Congress, saying that the Opposition was crying itself hoarse about the new IT rules that “sought to empower the media”. The ruling party forgot the fact that it was doing the same when the same platform labelled some of the tweets of its own leaders “manipulated media” a few months ago.

The ruling and Opposition parties should ensure that the media platforms play by the rules instead of attempting to teach them lessons with a partisan approach. “Interfering with national politics” is a grave allegation and should be levelled only when the situation warrants it. Selective criticism does not help either. Unhindered flow of information is critical to the survival and success of democracy and every stakeholder — political actors, media platforms and government agencies alike — must remember it.