Delhi Police Goes To Twitter India Offices Over ‘Congress Toolkit’ Probe After It Flagged It As Manipulated Media Despite IT Ministry Warning

Update: The Delhi Police has termed its visit to Twitter India offices as a routine process to ascertain who is the most suitable person to issue a notice over its Toolkit probe as replies by Twitter India's MD were found to be very ambiguous.

The Delhi Police has conducted raids on Twitter India's offices in Delhi and Gurugram in connection with its probe in the Toolkit case.

As per reports, this raid has been conducted after the Delhi Police sent a notice to Twitter India over Toolkit tweets being flagged as 'manipulated media'.

This notice was sent over the alleged Congress Toolkit which has been prepared by the AICC Research Cell. The party has called this Toolkit fake.

The notice said that a preliminary inquiry is being conducted over the Toolkit allegedly released by the Congress party. It adds that "during course of investigation it has come to our knowledge that you are acquainted with the facts of the matter and are in possession of information with regards to the same".

Notably, the micro-blogging website had on Friday flagged tweets of the BJP leaders sharing alleged toolkit document by the Congress to malign the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India.

The Congress had claimed that the 'toolkit' was forged and filed a police complaint against BJP leaders including party president J P Nadda for allegedly "spreading misinformation". The Sonia Gandhi-led party has also written to Twitter for permanent suspension of the accounts of BJP leaders.

After Twitter flagged the tweets, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in a statement on Friday said that it has written a strong communication to the global team of Twitter registering objection on the use of the “Manipulated Media” tag on certain tweets made by Indian political leaders with reference to a toolkit "created to undermine, derail and demean the efforts of the government against Covid-19 pandemic".

Asserting that an investigation by a local law enforcement agency is already going on the complaint filed by one of the parties in the matter, the government said that Twitter has "unilaterally drawn a conclusion" in the matter without waiting for the police to "determine the veracity of the toolkit'.

Asking the Government to take action, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had too pushed back against Twitter over the social media platform’s bias against the party.

Senior BJP leader Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has shot back at Twitter for labelling tweets made by him and his colleagues as “manipulated media”. He has said that the conduct of the platform was biased and that it exposed the selective approach of Twitter. He also asked the Government to look into the issue of whether Twitter is a social media platform or a media platform.