House panel to discuss ‘misuse of social media’ with Twitter

The parliamentary panel on information technology has asked officials from Twitter and the ministry of electronics and information technology to appear before it on June 18 to discuss “prevention of misuse of social media platforms”, with people familiar with the matter saying that the issue of the so-called Congress toolkit may be raised by the panel.

The case pertains to a document that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says demonstrates a conspiracy by the Congress to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, while the opposition party has said the document is fake. Twitter labelled posts linking to the document as “manipulated media” sparking off a spat with the Union government.

“The issue is topical and relevant to the panel’s overall discussion,” one of these people said. “The panel members may want appropriate explanations. There will also be other wide ranging discussion as the report of the committee shapes up. If there is quorum, the meeting will be held.” The schedule and agenda of the meeting has been uploaded on the Lok Sabha website. This is the first time that the panel will meet since the onset of the second Covid wave in March. The last panel meeting was held on March 16.

The topic has been particularly contentious with BJP MP Nishikant Dubey hitting out panel chairperson and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for demanding an explanation from the ministry over its decision to ask Twitter to remove the manipulated media tag from posts made by several BJP leaders.

The controversy began when Twitter tagged a May 18 post by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra and other senior BJP leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and party’s national social media in-charge Priti Gandhi, as “manipulated media”. The BJP alleged the toolkit was aimed at building a biased narrative over the Indian government’s handling of the second wave of Covid-19, and the Central Vista Project. Many top BJP leaders, including its chief JP Nadda and Union ministers Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hardeep Puri, Anurag

Thakur, Piyush Goyal, amplified Patra’s tweet. The Congress subsequently reached out to Twitter to tag the tweets of the union ministers as well and even registered an FIR in the case.

The action prompted the ministry of electronics and information technology to write to Twitter on May 21, asking it to remove the tag as the matter was under investigation. This was followed by a visit and notice to Twitter office from the Delhi Police, which sought information from Twitter -- although the police force was yet to register a case regarding it.