With Elections Coming Up, Centre Raises Concerns Of Misuse On Twitter, Asks To Ensure ‘No Foreign Intrusion’

Keeping the upcoming elections in mind, the Government of India has taken micro-blogging platform Twitter to task on the matter of the platform being misused and made itself clear that it would not appreciate any foreign interference during the elections, reports Inc42.

Talking to the media after interacting with Union Minister for Information Technology and Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad, Twitter’s head of Global Policy Colin Crowell said that the platform should not be abused to “derail the fairness of democracy”.

Reiterating that the Government did not want to control the medium, Crowell said that the platform ideally should have a self-regulating mechanism. This comes in light of allegations of Russian interference in the United States Presidential Elections of 2016 where bots or automated accounts originating from Russia were allegedly being used to support Republican candidate and eventual victor Donald Trump.

In October last year, Twitter banned ads from Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik over allegations that they were involved in putting out deceptive ads to interfere with the Presidential Elections.

In November, it was revealed in a Senate hearing that Twitter censored hashtags critical of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. A large amount of tweets using the hashtags #DNCLeaks and #PodestaEmails – both referring to the Democrat’s election campaign – were hidden from public view.

Also Read: Twitter Censored Hashtags Critical Of Hillary Clinton During US Presidential Election