In the midst of the 'toolkit' controversy, the Congress has written to Twitter asking the microblogging site to flag the handles of a host of union ministers as 'manipulative media' for “spreading false and malicious propaganda”.
AICC General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala, who heads the Communications department of the party, today wrote to Vijaya Gadde, Lead for Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety, Twitter, Inc., and Jim Baker, Deputy General Counsel and Vice President, Legal, Twitter, Inc., sharing a list of Twitter handles of various union ministers along with the specific URLs of the controversial tweets made by them on May 18, 2021 “with a clear mal-intent to exploit the social media space (Twitter) to spread lies and malicious propaganda throughout the territory of India.”
The union ministers whose twitter details were listed by the Congress in the letter comprise Giriraj Singh, Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Pralhad Joshi, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Thawarchand Gehlot, Harsh Vardhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
“You would appreciate that the forged, fabricated material and the claims made under the malicious #CongressToolkitExposed, by the various ministers above-named, is identical to the material that has already marked as ‘manipulative media’, by Twitter, on various accounts including that of the BJP Spokesperson -- Mr. Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) -- who is also one of the main accused in FIR No. 215/2021 registered by Chhattisgarh Police at Police Station Civil Lines, Raipur,” Surjewala wrote.
He said that since it is a matter of fact that people tend to believe as ‘true’ and take on face value, any information that is put up directly by a union minister of the Government of India through his or her official and verified Twitter account, it becomes all the more imperative to tag as ‘manipulative media’ all such tweets made by union ministers on the allegedly forged toolkit document, which the Congress claims has been created by the BJP.
“..it is reasonable to expect that the aforementioned individuals will be dealt with the same yardstick as applied in other cases where the Twitter platform is misused to broadcast forged and fabricated material,” Surjewala said.
The Congress had earlier written to the Twitter on the toolkit controversy, following which the social media giant had asked the party to provide URLs of the contentious tweets made by union ministers.
