Manipulated Media label on ‘Congress Toolkit’ Tweet: Government writes to Twitter demanding removal of tag

After Twitter marked BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra’s tweet as ‘Manipulated Media’ and the Congress used that to launch a counter-attack, the Centre has now written to Twitter demanding the removal of the tag. According to reports, the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) has sent a strong communication to the global team of Twitter registering objection on the use of “Manipulated Media” tag on certain tweets by ‘Indian politicians’ with reference to a toolkit created to derail the government’s efforts against COVID-19.

The ministry has stated that Twitter unilaterally chose to go ahead and designate certain tweets as ‘Manipulated’, pending investigation. “This action not only dilutes the credibility of Twitter but also puts a question mark on the status of Twitter as an ‘Intermediary’….The government has asked Twitter to remove the ‘Manipulated Media’ tags affixed prejudicially to certain tweets in recent days in the interests of fairness and equity,” said the reports.