A social media post by Amit Malviya, the head of the Information and Technology (IT) cell of the country's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been labelled as "manipulated media" by US social media giant Twitter, in one of the first usages of the new fact-checking feature in India.
Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time. https://t.co/9wQeNE5xAP pic.twitter.com/b4HjXTHPSx
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) November 28, 2020
In his controversial post on 28 November, Malviya questioned Congress parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi for sharing a photograph depicting what appears to be an aged farmer being beaten up by a baton-wielding cop during the ongoing farmer protests in Delhi.
The BJP functionary shared a video casting doubt on the veracity of the picture shared by Rahul.
"Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long time", Malviya captioned his post.
Social media users and several fact-checking websites, however, soon started pointing out that Malviya had indeed shared a "cropped version" of the video. Fact-checking portal Boom reported that the farmer in the picture and the video, Sukhbir Singh, had indeed been hit by policemen.
Since Rahul Gandhi shared the picture, it has become a symbol of the ongoing protests by farmers, with many social media users expressing outrage over police employing brute force against an elderly Sikh farmer. At the same time, the Congress functionary has been accused of reaping political benefits from the ongoing situation.
While many Indian social media users have lauded Twitter for putting its foot down in the case, a sizeable section of netizens also lashed out at the California-headquartered company for "interference".
Amit Malviya @amitmalviya tweet being marked by Twitter as "manipulated media" is Twitters interference as some kind of Big Boss & akin to the way it has been censoring Trumps tweets. This has to be strongly opposed or else we will see much worse in 2024 elections #amitmalviya pic.twitter.com/BboHJw5qdo
— Rosy (@rose_k01) December 2, 2020
Meanwhile, thousands of more farmers from the state of Haryana are reportedly on their way to Delhi to express solidarity with the protesters, in a sign that the demonstrations could intensify in the coming days.
Talks between the federal government and farmers on Tuesday evening didn't achieve any breakthrough, with the protesters standing firm on their demand that the two agriculture laws and the Essential Commodies Act, 2020, be withdrawn. The farmers have also demanded the repeal of a proposed electicty act that they fear would spell the end of subsidised electricity.
Twitter's 'Manipulated Media' Feature
The new tag, rolled out in February of this year, has been described as Twitter's effort to limit misleading posts and provide users with some "context" before they go on to like or retweet the post in question.
Our new rule: You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide context. https://t.co/VN8uGyVJgq
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) February 4, 2020
The warning feature has been employed regularly to flag tweets by the US president, with it first being used in June when the 74-year-old Trump shared an allegedly doctored video to target the broadcaster CNN.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020
