After it was concluded beyond doubt that propaganda website The Wire quite likely fell for a haox, if they have not perpetrated it themselves, involving Facebook’s parent company Meta and BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien has now stepped in to give legitimacy to this. Taking to Twitter, O’Brien said that he would raise this issue in the Parliament.
Will take this up in the winter session of #Parliament in November. We must. Keep fighting the good fight
— Derek O'Brien | ডেরেক ও'ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) October 11, 2022
The ‘good fight’ O’Brien wants to take up has been categorically denied by Meta executives as fake and fabricated documents. In an article published on October 10, 2022, titled ‘If BJP’s Amit Malviya Reports Your Post, Instagram Will Take It Down – No Questions Asked’, leftist propaganda website ‘The Wire’ alleged that BJP’s Amit Malviya is an all-powerful individual who can get any social media post on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram removed. The article was based on some random troll account calling itself ‘political satire’ account with less than 5,000 followers claiming Malviya personally targeted his posts and ‘curbed his reach’.
On one hand, The Wire wanted everyone to believe Malviya is some super-villain-ish individual with all the power on the internet and on other hand, it wanted us to believe he would personally go after obscure accounts on Instagram with hardly any clout when there are way more political influencer accounts who have way more nuisance value.
Meta says The Wire story based on fabricated documents
After the report was published Meta has categorically come out and denied the writeup published by The Wire and said that the documents they used for building up the narrative were fabricated. Meta’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Guy Rosen, issued a statement calling out the hoax and concluded it by saying that he hopes The Wire was a victim in the hoax and not a perpetrator.
Even before Facebook’s denial came out towards the evening India time on Tuesday, many Twitter users, a lot of whom know a thing or two about technology had cast aspersions on The Wire’s report which appeared ridiculous from the word go. In fact, a lot of Modi critics and haters too did not buy The Wire’s writeup as it was clearly way too exaggerated and appeared ridiculously hilarious. Amusingly, it is the Left-Liberal cabal that has a history of deplatforming critics while championing the ’cause’ of free speech. Remember how former US President Donald Trump was deplatformed from all social media platforms? Social media platforms such as Twitter has quite clearly mentioned that their employees are left-leaning and it does show in the way it operates too.
Derek O’Brien goes after hoax instead of sorting his own backyard
But Derek O’Brien here would like to take this hoax as some sort of gospel and raise ‘the issue’ in the Parliament in winter session. The Wire hoax was so unbelievable that even Rahul Gandhi didn’t share its screenshot to attack Modi government, like he usually does. To put things in perspective, Islamists are running riots in O’Brien’s backyard, attacking Durga Puja pandals and opposing the celebration of Hindu festivals. But no, O’Brien would rather exaggerate a hoax in Parliament than get the law and order in his own home state in order.
O’Brien was also mocked at by netizens for the same.
Saare velle kaam iske hisse hi aate hain
— Sanghis United (@SanghisUnited) October 11, 2022
While some even gave him advice to choose his battles wisely.
Please choose your battles wisely. https://t.co/njy3fP2F7B
— Rajguru (@RajguruGuru1) October 11, 2022
This, obviously, is not the first time O’Brien has chosen to raise inconsequential issues in Parliament in what appears to be his way of making up for lack of credibility otherwise. Back in 2018, O’Brien had threatened to name Twitter users in Parliament whom he found ‘offensive’ and those who ‘irritate him’.
Next time, your twitter handle too will be mentioned #InsideParliament You liar. You spreader of #FakeNews You cheat. I was standing next to @OmarAbdullah and my leader @MamataOfficial when media was addressed. Omar said nothing of the sort. @TwitterIndia stop this nonsense https://t.co/5IolxFGekL
— Derek O'Brien | ডেরেক ও'ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) July 27, 2018
As seen above, Derek decided to accuse a twitter user of lying about Omar Abdullah’s statement and as a result threatened that he would be mentioned in the Parliament. It was indeed shocking to note that a senior MP wanted to use Parliament’s precious time to discuss social media disagreements and call out private citizens, who would be in no position to defend themselves from his attacks.
Even before this, in 2017, based on a writeup by Swati Chaturvedi, abusive troll masquerading as a journalist with The Wire like sources, O’Brien made childish accusations against some Twitter users, including against OpIndia co-founder Rahul Raj, accusing them of issuing criminal threats to other people while being followed by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. This is akin to an MP quoting a pamphlet printed by ISIS to claim that Barack Obama was a terrorist. What next? An MP quoting a WhatsApp forward to make a point? It was a clear case of intimidation.
But it seems O’Brien would still continue to put his bets on trash published by dubious platforms with questionable credibility and create noise in the Parliament so that the cries of people back home in West Bengal are stifled.
Imagine being so petty.
