Centre Wants Twitter To Drop ‘Manipulated Media’ Tag From Toolkit Tweets

New Delhi: The Centre has taken exception to Twitter’s decision to affix the ‘manipulated media’ tag to “tweets made by Indian political leaders with reference to a toolkit created to undermine, derail and demean the efforts of the Government against the Covid-19 pandemic”.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has sent a strongly-worded notice to the microblogging platform asking it to drop ‘manipulated media’ tag, reported Hindustan Times.

An official told HT the ministry has stated that since the veracity of toolkit is under investigation following a complaint lodged by a concerned party, how can Twitter unilaterally draw a conclusion on the matter and arbitrarily tag it as ‘Manipulated Media’.

Such tagging by Twitter appears “prejudged, prejudiced and a deliberate attempt to colour the investigation by local law enforcement agency,” the government observed.

Twitter is yet to respond on the matter.

The Centre’s move came hours after Twitter tagged a May 18 post by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as ‘manipulated media’. In his tweet, Patra alleged the Congress circulated a document which outlined ways to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Several top BJP leaders amplified Patra’s tweet.

Another tweet, by writer and columnist Shefali Vaidya, was also marked as ‘manipulated media’.