BJP’s social media chief Amit Malviya’s tweet has been flagged as “manipulated media” by the micro-blogging site Twitter. Many pointed out at this tweet that this is the first instance of the social media site calling out ‘Fake News’ in India.
A fact check tweet posted by BJP’s social media chief on November 28 on the image of an elderly farmer during a lathicharge by a policeman in Haryana during the protests that commenced last week. This image has been posted by several Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi which showed a cop swinging his baton over a farmer trying to dodge a bow.
In a incident where Amit Malviya responds on Rahul Gandhi’s tweet wrote “propaganda vs reality” along with the same video posted: “Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time”.
Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time. https://t.co/9wQeNE5xAP pic.twitter.com/b4HjXTHPSx
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) November 28, 2020
The fact checking website Alt News posted a longer video of the same mentioned incident where policeman was seen raising blows on the protestors. He was accused by critics on using a cropped video.
Full video pic.twitter.com/xXTiIzyufk
— Rahul (@rk4everrr) November 28, 2020
Twitter’s “synthetic and manipulated media policy” says: “You may not deceptively promote synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”
Twitter labeled and said: “may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated”.
Twitter flooded with outrageous tweets and comments quoting the video, AAP commenting on it was the first in India.
Twitter has started tagging fake news on Twitter India and guess who is the first person to take this honor from India?@amitmalviya, the kingpin of Fake News Factory in India.
Funny days ahead. pic.twitter.com/agWZwTCXRi
— Kapil (@kapsology) December 2, 2020
Lol @amitmalviya how does this feel?
Is the IT cell going to ban Twitter pic.twitter.com/2XLZ4a722w— Lavanya Ballal | ಲಾವಣ್ಯ ಬಲ್ಲಾಳ್ (@LavanyaBallal) December 2, 2020
Bhai @amitmalviya, any thoughts on becoming first Indian to be labelled by twitter as "Manipulated Media.??
Are you planning to quit Twitter in protest? pic.twitter.com/oxQosTFoiR
— Sumit Kashyap (@sumitkashyapjha) December 2, 2020
We all know the image of the cop beating the farmer is fake. But guess what @Twitter does. They label the fact-check as fake & the fake news goes unchecked. Precursor to full scale election interference pic.twitter.com/R0kz1C9KE7
— Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) December 2, 2020
It was pointed out by many users that policeman it was not clear whether the farmer was hit. PTI photographer Ravi Choudhary said quoted by Alt News: “I clicked the picture from the other side and it cannot be said with certainty whether the baton touched the farmer or not because there was a lot of commotion at the time. The police were lathi-charging at the protestors and the farmer was running in the other direction to save himself. He may have been hit by another cop earlier if not this one.”
Read also: “This Is A Government Of Lies”, Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Suit Boot’ Jibe At Centre Over ‘Chalo Delhi’ Protest
