Twitter labels BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya’s tweet on farmers protest as ‘manipulated media’

Dec. 2: Social media giant Twitter has started tagging fake news on Twitter India and the first person in Indian politics whose tweet was labelled as ‘manipulated’ was that of Amit Malviya, IT Cell Head of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the tweet in question, Malviya was responding to a post by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi had tweeted a photograph showing a policeman wielding his baton against a protesting elderly farmer, writing in Hindi: “It is a very sad photo. Our slogan was ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ but today PM Modi’s arrogance made the jawan stand against the farmer. This is very dangerous.”

In response, Malviya on November 28 posted a “propaganda vs reality” video purporting to show that the farmer was, in fact, not hit by the police baton. In the accompanying caption, he said “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

However, more clips of the incident showed that the farmers were hit by paramilitary forces while they were agitating on the Delhi-Haryana border. According to Twitter’s synthetic and manipulated media policy, Twitter red-flags the content posted on its platform if they are “significantly and deceptively altered or fabricated, if they are shared in a deceptive manner, or if they are likely to impact public safety or cause harm”. Twitter also removes content if two or more of the criteria are met.

Full video pic.twitter.com/xXTiIzyufk

— Rahul (@rk4everrr) November 28, 2020

Fact-check websites contradicted the BJP leader’s claim, saying he had posted a cropped video. Alt News shared a longer version of the video which showed two policemen swinging their batons at the farmer one after the other. Malviya’s video showed only the second cop whose baton missed the farmer. PTI photographer Ravi Choudhary, who captured the original photo of the elderly farmer, posted more photos on his Instagram page showing farmers being hit by paramilitary forces.

According to a report by Republic, “BOOM fact-checked Malviya’s claim and reached out to the farmer who was seen being hit in the video. He has been identified as Sukhdev Singh and is currently at the Haryana-Delhi border. He was quoted in media reports as saying that he had sustained injuries during the protest. During the run-up to the US elections 2020, Twitter had flagged a number of tweets by the then US President Donald Trump for posting false information on Coronavirus and later on the election results.