Toolkit row: Cong writes to Twitter, wants it to put ‘manipulated media’ tag on tweets of 11 Union Ministers
Congress has provided a list of Twitter handles of various Union Ministers along with the specific URLs of the Tweets made by them on May 18.
New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday wrote to Twitter seeking the urgent need to affix “manipulative media” tags to the tweets of the Union Ministers in the central government for spreading “false and malicious propaganda”.
Congress in its letter, said former Member of Parliament Rajeev Gowda and Chairman of Congress Social Media Department Rohan Gupta had earlier addressed a communication to Twitter on the subject matter of the forged ‘Toolkit’ document created by the BJP leaders to gain undue and wrongful political advantage by spreading potentially dangerous, false and fabricated material through their Twitter handles, against the party and its leaders.
The subject of the letter written by the party read, “Urgent need to affix ‘Manipulative Media’ Tags to the Tweets of Union Ministers in the Modi Government for spreading false and malicious propaganda.”
“Further, in order to bring to your notice, the role played by various Union Ministers in the Modi Government to propagate the above-mentioned forged documents through their official Twitter handles, I had addressed an e-mail dated May 25 to Twitter Inc. In furtherance of the same, vide your reply dated May 25, you had asked to provide URLs of the said Tweets of the Union Ministers,” Congress said in its letter.
Congress has provided a list of Twitter handles of various Union Ministers along with the specific URLs of the Tweets made by them on May 18.
The list includes Shandilya Giriaj Singh, Piyush Goyal, Smriti Zubin Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prahlad Joshi, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Thawarchand Gehlot, Harsh Vardhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
The Congress has also attached a screenshot of the tweets on the ‘forged Toolkit document’ with the letter.
“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- 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 in Raipur,” Congress said.
“In view of the above, 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 and all the aforesaid Tweets ‘Manipulative Media’ by the Twitter, Inc,” it said.
The letter has been undersigned by the National General Secretary of Congress party Randeep Singh Surjewala.
Addressing the media on May 18, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had alleged that the toolkit has instructions for social media volunteers of Congress to call the new COVID-19 mutant as “Indian strain” or “Modi strain” against the World Health Organization’s (WHO) instructions.
However, Congress denied the allegations and wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner seeking registration of FIR against BJP President JP Nadda, Union Minister Smriti Irani, party spokesperson Sambit Patra, party leader BL Santhosh and others alleging that they had shared “forged and fabricated documents with the intent to create communal disharmony and civil unrest” and to “divert attention from Modi government’s failure in providing necessary aid to people amidst the current pandemic”.
The complaint was filed after remarks by BJP leaders on social media with the hashtag #CongressToolkitExposed in which they accused Congress of spreading “false, negative news and stirring up discontent”.
The Delhi Police Special Cell had sent notice to Twitter in connection with a probe over “manipulated media” tag used with some of the posts on an alleged Congress “toolkit” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.
Earlier on May 24, the Delhi Police had asked Twitter to share the information that it has in regard to the alleged toolkit and why it used the “manipulated media” tag used on tweets alleging a Congress “Toolkit” against the central government. It also carried out a search at the Twitter India offices in Lado Sarai, New Delhi and Gurgaon.