Call it a coincidence or call it a coordinated attack. Last week an influential twitter user who goes by the handle “India_policy” found that his account had been abruptly suspended by Twitter. The suspension took place within hours of his tweeting something against Arvind Kejriwal. A screenshot of that tweet was shared by Arvind Kejriwal among his AAP trolls on Twitter and boom, India_Policy the account was suspended, probably after mass reporting by AAP fans:
Meanwhile, Kejri Sir anointed me as BJP ki fauj pic.twitter.com/LXVzflGRgB
— हम भारत के लोग (@India_Policy) October 24, 2016
For long time AAPTards been trying to hack my a/c. Created handles like @Chutiya_Policy to target me, but I got suspended only after this: https://t.co/HDYv5Dcofo
— हम भारत के लोग (@India_Policy) October 25, 2016
Although the official reason given by Twitter was that the user had multiple accounts, a twitter account which specialises in suspending other accounts claimed credit for this suspension, claiming that the account India_Policy was “abusive” :
Case N⭕ 158????
An????ther नमोगधा@India_Policy
Investigated & Suspended By Twiter????????d????nt abuse
स्वछ भारत स्वछ ट्विटर???????? pic.twitter.com/ZtYXt5DsBZ— शिकारी R????nviR (@SurgicalHero07) October 24, 2016
The fact was the account was never abusive, as was testified by Twitter users:
The one time we interacted, we disagreed (without any abusive language). So, not sure why @India_policy has been suspended.
— Vivek (@vivx) October 25, 2016
This is absurd. @India_policy was one of the best RW handles. Never abusive or 1 that would violate rules. What’s happening @TwitterIndia ? https://t.co/tO7Y3PA4Ho
— Shreyansh Rajpurohit (@shreyanshr) October 25, 2016
Request @TwitterIndia ,@Support to reinstate @India_Policy , feed was never abusive, always informative & correct.
— Ninjamonkey (@Aryanwarlord) October 25, 2016
Today, something similar happened. Another extremely popular Twitter account, that of GabbbarSingh, which is well known for its funny tweets, was suddenly suspended. The common thread: just hours before his suspension, he too had mocked Arvind Kejriwal. And Twitter users were aghast at this arbitrary move again:
So this acct suspended after this tweet? pic.twitter.com/FS7diT6Q1N
— Vijay (@centerofright) November 1, 2016
Women are threatened with rape and twitter does nothing. Say a word against Mr. Kejriwal and your account gets suspended. Well done Twitter.
— Nox (@NehaT_) November 1, 2016
Wow. How did @GabbbarSingh get suspended? Are puns not allowed on twitter, or is AK a taboo?
— V Vinay (@ainvvy) November 1, 2016
So now @Gabbbarsingh suspended cos he made a joke on joker @ArvindKejriwal –Looks like @AnkitLal is on overdrive
— Vijay (@vjshanks) November 1, 2016
The user behind the account though wondered whether it was related to a tweet he posted about Shah Rukh Khan’s fans. But he was quick to add that it would highly odd if he was suspended for that, since many others had tweeted similar material: “But many had tweeted similar things, and it was also picked up by mainstream media. I don’t understand why they would suspend me for that,”
As of now, the account GabbbarSingh is suspended, and people on Twitter have no clue. Is it a mere coincidence that both the accounts had mocked Arvind Kejriwal and AAP hours before their suspension?
UPDATE: The account is back and it claims that the reason was something else:
As I found out the reason of suspension was actually really trivial. No it was not the Kejriwal tweet.
— Gabbbar (@GabbbarSingh) November 1, 2016
