Twitter India which has long been accused of suspending accounts of users who had either regularly criticized AAP or were openly Right Wing (RW) when it came to their ideology.
Till today, Twitter only looked like suspending lone accounts which it reportedly felt were violating its terms and conditions. Almost never had Twitter acted against a whole bunch of accounts belonging to a particular group or ideology.
All changed on Thursday night when various prominent ABVP (RSS affiliated student organisation) handles, including their official handle, were suspended by Twitter.
As pointed out by Varada Marathe, an ABVP activist, Twitter suspended a whopping 7 accounts associated with ABVP:
- ABVP’s official handle
- ABVP Delhi’s account
- ABVP’s National Convener Saket Bahuguna’s account
- ABVP’s central office secretary Rahul Sharma’s account
- ABVP’s DUSU account
- Ex-JNUSU joint secretary and ABVP activist Saurabh Sharma’s account
- Dikshaa Verma the ABVP member who raised her voice against molestation in DU by leftist element’s account
Many considered it a blatant stifling of freedom of speech by Twitter India and lodged a strong protest:
@TwitterIndia kindly show which tweet of #ABVP was violating ur protocol..that u suspended the handle? #shame @Twitter pic.twitter.com/10rooouPCO
— Vaibhav (@VaibhavWrites) March 23, 2017
Biased @TwitterIndia suspends official twitter accounts of world’s largest student organisation ! @ABVPVoice @ABVPDelhi @BahugunaSaket pic.twitter.com/4m4MMrnuxZ
— Dr.Nikunj Makwana (@DrNikunjMakwana) March 23, 2017
So @TwitterIndia suspends many accounts related to ABVP including the official @verified account of ABVP .
Has someone from JNU joined them
— Kolahoi (@PawanDurani) March 24, 2017
. @TwitterIndia suspended @ABVPvoice @bahugunasaket @irahulshrmaa @dikshaaverma @saurabhjnu @ABVPdelhi .FOS not acceptable on Twitter now ? pic.twitter.com/AUSZYblOgF
— Tajinder Pal S Bagga (@TajinderBagga) March 24, 2017
@TwitterIndia @jack Please restore all ABVP handles that’s suspended w/o any reason as it seems a joint effort to gag Nationalistic voices
— Rajib Sur (@RoevanScoob) March 24, 2017
Such a targeted suspension of accounts of ABVP spurred BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya into action. He raised the issue with Twitter India and the accounts were later reinstated:
I have spoken to @TwitterIndia for reinstating ABVP accounts. They should be back soon.
— Amit Malviya (@malviyamit) March 24, 2017
When @TwitterIndia restores ABVP accounts, followers count will be initially less but will build up to original level soon.
— Amit Malviya (@malviyamit) March 24, 2017
As stated by Amit, all the accounts were indeed restored by Twitter India. This raises the question as to was this suspension exercise part of some mischief by certain elements in Twitter India?
If not then what were the supposed terms of conditions which these 7 Twitter accounts were violating which warranted a mass suspension exercise? By the time this report was published, there was no official word by Twitter India explaining why the decision was taken.
This has spurred spokesperson of Delhi unit of BJP, Tajinder Bagga to address them a letter seeking clarification for the same:
To @Twitter @TwitterIndia @Raheelk ,
Subject : seeking clarification on suspension of official accounts of ABVP pic.twitter.com/JzK9ZjR9dr
— Tajinder Pal S Bagga (@TajinderBagga) March 24, 2017
Apparently, only ABVP accounts weren’t the ones that were on the suspension radar of Twitter India. Another prominent pro-RW user was also at the receiving end of Twitter India’s perplexing policy:
Looks like fresh attack on RW accounts by Twitter India. Now they have suspended account of @RishiUvaach who took on AAP goons in Haryana.
— Dhaval Patel (@dhaval241086) March 24, 2017
