Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday called Twitter a “biased platform” and said that the social media network is interfering in India’s political process. “This is not an attack on Rahul Gandhi or simply about shutting Rahul Gandhi down. This is an attack on the democratic structure of the country,” the Congress leader remarked.
Rahul Gandhi made the remarks in a video statement titled “Twitter’s Dangerous Game”, which he posted from his official handle on YouTube. The statement comes in the wake of Twitter temporarily locking several Congress leaders out of their accounts for sharing a photograph of the family of a nine-year-old rape victim. Accounts of Randeep Singh Surjewala, Ajay Maken, Sushmita Dev, and Manickam Tagore were among those temporarily locked, Congress functionaries aware of the matter said.
“I have some 19 to 20 million followers, you are denying them the right to an opinion,” Gandhi said. “It is not only patently unfair but also breaching the idea that Twitter is a neutral platform.”
The Congress leader said that such actions by a social media platform are “very dangerous” for investors since taking sides in a political context always has repercussions. He said that at a time when India’s “democracy is under attack”, Twitter is proving to be a “biased platform” which “listens to what the government of the day says”.
“The democracy is under attack, we are not allowed to speak in the Parliament, the media is controlled and I thought there was a ray of light where we could put what we thought on Twitter,” Rahul Gandhi said. “But that is not the case, it is now obvious that Twitter is a biased platform and it’s something that listens to what the government of the day says.”
Twitter, however, insists that it enforces its rules “judiciously and impartially” and added it has taken proactive action over several hundred tweets that posted the image in violation of its rules. A spokesperson for the social media platform confirmed that “(Twitter)…may continue to do so in line with our range of enforcement options.”
On its part, Twitter said that “certain types of private information carry higher risks than others” and that it was the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) that had alerted the company about the specific content on the platform which allegedly revealed the identity of an alleged sexual assault victim and her parents. It added the matter was reviewed in line with Twitter rules as well as the concerns expressed as per Indian law.
