Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi has complained to Twitter that the social media company has put a virtual ceiling on his account's ability to gain new followers. In a letter addressed to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, he has alleged that the microblogging website has taken the above mentioned step under pressure from the Modi administration.
Rahul Gandhi said that his following has been limited ever since Twitter had suspended his account back in August 2021. He mentioned that before his account was suspended, it gained followers at a rate of 2.3 lakhs per month. For some months, his following went as high as 6.3 lakhs per month. But since August 2021, his monthly following has crashed down to around 2500 per month resulting in his total following stuck at 1.94 crores. “In this backdrop, it is perplexing that the growth in my twitter followers has suddenly been suppressed,” Rahul wrote to the Twitter CEO in a letter accessed by NDTV.
Assuming a philosophical tone, he wrote that it was the duty of the micro-blogging website to ensure a level-playing field in terms of political outreach on the internet. “I have been reliably, albeit discreetly, informed by people at Twitter India that they are under immense pressure by the government to silence my voice. My account was even blocked for a few days for no legitimate reason… You have an enormous responsibility to ensure that Twitter does not actively help in the growth of authoritarianism in India”, the letter said.
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He further claimed that the government has stifled freedom of speech and expression by censoring the conventional media. He said that such a repressive political milieu puts an onus on the social media platforms like twitter to provide a crucial platform for public outreach and poll campaigns. “The ideological battle between liberal democracy and authoritarianism across the world is being shaped on social media platforms. This places a huge responsibility on those that are at the helm of companies like twitter…I am writing to you on behalf of more than a billion Indians to not allow Twitter to become a pawn in the destruction of the idea of India,” Rahul wrote further in the letter sent on 27th December last year.
Rahul’s twitter account was suspended on the complaints of BJP after Twitter ruled that he had violated the company laws by posting a photograph of a woman victim of molestation. His account was unfrozen after a week but Rahul alleged that he has not been able to gain followers at a pace his account used to prior to suspension. “There were many other Twitter handles, including Government ones, which had tweeted similar photos of the same people. None of those accounts were blocked. My account was singularly targeted,” Rahul said.
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“Twitter has zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam. We fight spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale with machine learning tools, and as part of those consistent and ongoing efforts to ensure a healthy service and credible accounts, follower counts can and do fluctuate,” ANI quoted a twitter spokesperson saying in response to the letter. The spokesperson added that the follower count was “accurate.”
Another twitter spokesperson quoted by the Wall Street Journal said that the follower count is susceptible to fluctuations as the machine learning program combats “spam” and “manipulation” against millions of accounts that violate twitter policies. The spokesperson however declined to comment on Gandhi's accusations.
INC has however rejected this clarification. “This is neither a fully explanatory nor a satisfactory response... The chronology of events does not corroborate Twitter's claims,” said Srivatsa YB in a report by NDTV.
