From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Monday attacked the governmemt for gagging Twitter that has become a platform for expression of public opinion. She noted that Twitter is a platform where news is generated and where common citizens can voice their concerns, their opinions and what is ailing them.
She aid Twitter founder and former CEO has made evidently clear in this regard, asserting that when the farmer agitation was happening in India against the three black farm laws, the Modi government pressurised twitter to block accounts that were showing farmer protests, otherwise they would be raided, their employees would be raided and twitter would be shut down in India.
“What does he have to gain through lying or not lying or telling the truth, but, the government has a lot to gain through lying and it all ties up together. It all ties up, because if you remember in May 2021, when the farmer agitation was on its peak, the BJP fake news factory and multiple leaders had tweeted completely a concoction of their brain child some alleged tool kit, which was tagged as manipulated media and twitter was then raided on the 24th May, 2021,” Shrinate told a press conference here.
“It happened because the idea was to suppress the farmer agitation. The idea was to send out a message that anybody standing with the farmers or showing their movement will be suppressed like this, but what is the Prime Minister so scared about and why should the Prime Minister of this country be scared of a girl, who is a climate activist at the age of 21? Why should that Prime Minister squirm at the sight of Rihanna or at a statement made by Greta Thunberg or any voice that comes in from alternate media, whether it is NewsClick, or The Wire, or Newslaundry, or The Quint or any such agency, or the Dainik Bhaskar or the Bharat Samachar anybody exposing the government and asking uncomfortable questions, will be raided, will be humiliated, and will be pressurised into submission,” she said.
She said last, but not the least, the opposition voices aare regularly suppressed at the behest of the Modi government. She cited how the Twitter account of Rahul Gandhi was blocked in Augusst 2021 and there was no subscriber growth in his account for six month from Augusst 2021 to February 2022.
Shrinate also spoke about the data breach that has happened in CoWIN. The most feeble response from the government was, but, the most bizarre, which has actually opened up Pandora’s box. The Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology has come on record to say that this breach is to a previous data breach and stolen data.
“So, the reality is that you cannot keep the data of crores of Indians safe, but, you want to point fingers, you want to coax platforms into submission because they show you the truth, but, the reality also is that all platforms, each and every platform of this country available to us, will be used to show you the mirror, of exposing you, of telling the truth and come what may. We are willing to pay any price for this, but, what has happened is, that a hundred and forty crore Indians today feel embarrassed, today feel ashamed that in elected government, a Prime Minister so rattled by the truth, tells a social media platform to not show the farmer agitation,” she added.
