Toolkit row: Twitter labels TS BJP chief Bandi Sanjay's tweet 'manipulated media'
After Twitter flagged a tweet by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as "manipulated media", the social media platform has done the same to a tweet by BJP Telangana president Bandi Sanjay.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 31 May 2021 1:05 PM GMT
Hyderabad: After Twitter flagged a tweet by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as "manipulated media", the social media platform has done the same to a tweet by BJP Telangana president Bandi Sanjay.
Bandi Sanjay had shared the same toolkit that had been shared by several BJP leaders on 18 May. Sharing the toolkit, the BJP leader had tweeted, "'Use dramatic pictures of funerals' 'Call new strain 'Indian Mutant' 'Asking Social media volunteers to call it 'Modi Strain' Exposed ! Using a pandemic crisis to tarnish our Prime Minister and country for their own party to flourish is what Congress stands for (sic)."
On 18 May, BJP had released a document seemingly printed on the letterhead of the AICC research department. The saffron party had alleged that the Congress had laid out a plan to destroy Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image and erode his popularity.
It had claimed that the Opposition party had suggested that the new coronavirus mutant be dubbed the India strain or Modi strain and encouraged the use of phrases like 'Missing Amit Shah', 'Quarantined Jaishankar', and 'Sidelined Rajnath Singh'.
The AICC research department head, Rajeev Gowda, and social media department head Rohan Gupta had filed a complaint with the Delhi police against BJP leaders accusing them of "forging the letterhead of AICC research department and thereafter printing false and fabricated content on the same… with the intent to create communal disharmony and civil unrest in the country… escalating violence, fuelling hate and spreading fake news".
The Congress had sent a letter to Twitter headquarters seeking actions against the Twitter handles of several top BJP leaders for spreading forged toolkit documents on its platform.
While Twitter did not divulge the methodology it used to determine the manipulation of the content posted by Bandi Sanjay, it said that it followed the standard synthetic and manipulated media policy.
According to Twitter policy, "…we may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated. In addition, you may not share deceptively altered media on Twitter in ways that mislead or deceive people about the media's authenticity where threats to physical safety or other serious harm may result."
