Twitter Flags Malviya's Tweet
The micro blogging site Twitter marked a tweet by BJP’s social media chief, Amit Malviya as ‘manipulated media’. This has been the first time the website is calling out fake news in India. Mr Malviya on November 28 had posted a fact check tweet on the image of an aged farmer who was lathi-charged by security personnel in Haryana during the ongoing ‘Delhi Chalo’ farmers protest to march towards the capital city of Delhi.
This image was widely shared on various social media platforms by many opposition leaders including the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Mr Malviya based his tweet in response to Mr Gandhi’s tweet where he posted a “propaganda vs reality tweet” and added a caption saying “Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long time.” The IT head of the BJP shared a video clip and labeled it as ‘reality’ which showed the policeman’s baton not touching the farmer. Many fact-checking websites report Mr Malviya’s video is clipped as soon as he released the video.
The ‘synthetic and manipulated media policy’ by Twitter clearly says “You may not deceptively promote synthetic or manipulative media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label tweets containing synthetic and manipulative media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”
The flagging on Amit Malviya’s tweet as ‘manipulated’ came from Twitter India only after numerous calls made by social media users asking Twitter to implement the same rules that the website applies to politicians in the USA.
The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now.