Updated: December 3, 2020 7:13:15 am
Malviya tweeted in response to Rahul Gandhi’s post.
Twitter on Wednesday tagged a tweet from BJP IT Cell director Amit Malviya as “manipulated media,” the first time the feature has appeared on timelines in India.
On November 28, Malviya, responding to a tweet from Congressional Leader Rahul Gandhi who had posted a photograph of a policeman brandishing a baton at an elderly man during continued farmers’ protests, posted a video titled “Propaganda vs. Reality.” Along with the video, Malviya tweeted: “Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long time.”
His tweet suggested that the photograph taken by PTI photojournalist Ravi Choudhary, which was tweeted by Rahul Gandhi, was wrong because the police officer had not actually hit the farmer.
Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long time. https://t.co/9wQeNE5xAP pic.twitter.com/b4HjXTHPSx
– Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) November 28, 2020
On Wednesday, Twitter labeled Malviya’s tweet “manipulated media.” An accompanying note, which gave context to why it was deemed tampered with, said that fact-checking site BoomLive had “analyzed a longer, unedited video showing a second officer brandishing his baton at the man” and also “identified the farmer, who stated that he was beaten and showed bruises, said they were from the incident ”.
“They can say they haven’t beaten me, but I’m here if they want to come and see my injuries,” Sukhdev Singh, the Sangojla farmer in Punjab’s Kapurthala district, told Boom Live.
Malviya did not respond to phone calls from The Indian Express for comment.
In response to a query, a Twitter spokesperson said: “The Tweet referred to was tagged under our Synthetic and Manipulated Media policy.”
Twitter’s “synthetic and manipulated media policy” was introduced in February 2020 to help users determine manufactured content. During the recently concluded US elections, these tags appeared in many tweets, including many posted by US President Donald Trump.
The manipulated media policy states that Twitter “may tag Tweets that include media (video, audio, and images) that have been altered or deceptively fabricated.” It adds: “You may not share deceptively altered media on Twitter in a way that misleads or misleads people about the authenticity of the media where threats to physical security or other serious harm may result.” Along with tags, the company also reduces the visibility of such posts.
Earlier this year, Twitter began tagging the names of government-funded media organizations, party operatives, and government officials. These tags have not yet been activated in India.
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