For the first time ever Twitter has taken action against fake news in India after it labelled a tweet by India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT head as "manipulated media".
Amit Malviya's tweet was flagged on police action during a farmers' protest near India's capital Delhi.
The BJP leader was reacting to a post by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. as the scion of the Nehru political dynasty posted on Twitter an image of 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.”
Malviya hit back posting a "propaganda vs reality" video claiming to show that the farmer was, in fact, not hit by the police baton. He also wrote that "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
His claim was debunked by the Indian media in a cropped video. A longer version of the video was shared showing two policemen swinging their batons at the farmer one after the other, whereas, Malviya’s video only showed the second cop whose baton missed the farmer.
The farmer, was also identified, had stated that he was hit and showed bruises he said were from the incident.
"They can say I have not been hit but I am right here if they want to come and see my injuries," Sukhdev Singh, a farmer from Kapurthala, Punjab, told BOOM. BJP IT Cell head @amitmalviya tweeted a cropped video to suggest Singh escaped unhurt. #FakeNewshttps://t.co/StRoTxbFk4
— BOOM Live (@boomlive_in) December 1, 2020
Photographer Ravi Choudhary, who was the first to capture the image of the elderly farmer, posted additional photos on his Instagram page showing farmers being hit by paramilitary forces.
Twitter then labelled the tweet as "manipulated media", saying the video shared by Malviya was edited, according to fact-check websites.
Earlier this year, the micro-blogging site had announced enforcing a policy against manipulated content, including from politicians from March 5.
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."
The site says it "may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated". While it says in most cases the action is restricted to labelling, media that check all three warning boxes — are synthetic or manipulated, are shared in a deceptive manner, and are likely to cause harm — can be removed.
In August, Facebook faced heavy criticism criticism after the Wall Street Journal reported that the social media giant's top public policy executive for India, Ankhi Das, refused to take down anti-Muslim comments by a Hindu nationalist lawmaker as it could damage the firm's business interests.
Off the back of pressure from rights groups and Indian politicians, Das stepped down from the firm back in October.
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