Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, who unsuccessfully contested from the Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency against controversial Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, has now charged Twitter India of blocking his tweets from being retweeted. Alleging that Twitter was openly controlling discourse and choosing political sides, the Congress leader alleged that tweets are disappearing from his timeline and none of his tweets can be retweeted. A look at Singh’s Twitter handle showed that the ‘retweet’ option below his recent tweets were disabled. The option, however, was seen activated shortly.
Among the many tweets that had the retweet option missing was one where Singh had conveyed his wishes to Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his 49th birthday. In a series of tweets, Singh said that even his tweet wishing Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his birthday can’t be retweeted by anyone.
Alleging a conspiracy behind from blocking his tweets from retweeting and wondered whether Twitter is now controlling the political discourse. Singh said that this happened after his tweets questioning the intelligence failure that led to Pulwama attack.
“How can it be so blatant Twitter India? A simple birthday wish to Rahul Gandhi is blocked from retweeting!! Is Twitter now openly controlling the discourse and choosing its political partners? Fit case for Parliamentary Inquiry? Why was my this tweet removed?” he said in tweet.
He also questioned Twitter over its policy to deal with tweets that spread hatred in society and divide people on communal lines. He said that the microblogging site didn’t take action against those who share abusive tweets but his tweets are getting being blocked from being retweeted.
“Just saw my other tweets also. My questions on intelligence failure are also blocked by Twitter India from retweeting? No action on abusive tweets, no action on threatening tweets, no action on hate tweets but bonafide queries are blocked as offensive! What’s your policy Twitter?” he asked.
“My question to Twitter India. None of my tweets can be retweeted after I asked questions on intelligence failure. Why? A few minutes back I raised it through two tweets. Suddenly both tweets have disappeared! Policy intervention by Twitter or a case of hacking by miscreants?” he said.
However, a few users were quick to point out that the Congress leader may have changed his privacy settings and protected his tweets, thus inadvertently disabling the retweet option on his end. They also advised him through a step-by-step guide on how to enable the retweet option again and asked him to refrain from spreading unnecessary panic.
A few minutes later, Digvijaya Singh’s tweets were unblocked from retweeting and his tweet on Rahul Gandhi’s birthday has fetched nearly 200 retweets and over 2,000 likes. It is unclear whether Singh fixed his privacy settings on Twitter or whether the brief anomaly was on account of some interference by Twitter.