On Monday, a group of officers from the Special Cell, an elite branch of the police in charge of investigating terrorism and organized crime in New Delhi, went to Twitter’s offices in the city to “send announcement” to the head of Twitter in India. . The police are also trying to get involved a Twitter office in Gurugram, a location that has been permanently closed, a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.
The move comes three days after Twitter labeled “manipulated media” on tweets among half a dozen members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, of which they have accused the National Congress of India, the main opposition party, of conspiring to damage Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for its handling second wave of coronavirus pandemic in India.
In an image that members circulated, they announced that the Indian National Congress was giving special medical incentives to journalists affected by the pandemic among other things. AltNews, an Indian authenticity verification website, establish that the image has been tampered with. (Congress also filed a police complaint against Sambit Patra, a BJP spokesman, who originally shared the image.) On Friday, India’s IT ministry sent a letter to the company asking it to remove the labels. Twitter does not.
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment.
Multiple spokespersons for the Delhi Police did not respond to requests for comment. But law enforcement sources told BuzzFeed News that they went to Twitter’s office to send a notice to Twitter as part of a “routine process,” after they received a “no answer.” clear” from the CEO of Twitter India, Manish Maheshwari.
In video of police action seen by BuzzFeed News, officials go to reception in the lobby of the New Delhi building, which houses India’s Twitter headquarters, and ask security officers for the location of the office. room. It is not clear whether police entered the office or not.
For months, Twitter has locked horns with the Indian government. In February, the company refuse censorship tweets by domestic journalists, activists and politicians despite being ordered to do so by the Indian government, and despite threats from the IT Department to jailing Twitter officials for not pulling government lines.
At the end of February, the Indian government disclosure new regulations to assume greater power over social media companies. On Friday, it issued an order asking platforms to take down content that mentions an “Indian variant” of the coronavirus, follow for Reuters.
