Following Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk officially taking control of Twitter, Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi said that he hopes that Twitter will become the space that will “no longer stifle the opposition’s voice in India due to government pressure”.
Gandhi, sharing a graph, tweeted on Friday, “Congrats @elonmusk. I hope @Twitter will now act against hate speech, fact check more robustly, and will no longer stifle the opposition’s voice in India due to government pressure.”
Titled ‘Rahul Gandhi’s account manipulation’, the graph shared by Gandhi seemed to suggest that his new followers were “suppressed” between August 2021 and February 2022. This was the period between his “tweet about rape victim” and “Wall Street Journal exposing Twitter”, the Congress leader claimed.
The Wayanad MP claimed that he had made 20 appeals to the micro-blogging site, and “Twitter denied any wrong doing”.
On August 2021, the Twitter account of Gandhi was temporarily locked, a day after a photograph he had posted with the family of the nine-year-old Dalit rape victim was taken down from the platform following notice to Twitter India by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
The commission had said that the tweet revealed the identity of the rape victim.
Meanwhile, BJP IT in-charge Amit Malviya took a dig at the Congress leader for his tweet.
“Imagine for Rahul Gandhi, his stagnant Twitter followers, is the biggest issue plaguing his mind when frankly he should be focusing on his stagnant political career and rapidly sinking fortunes of the Congress party”.
“What next? Rush to Musk to get EVMs checked? Grow up, Rahul,” he added.
Replying to Malviya’s tweet, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said, “Hey fake news peddler, do yourself a favour and check out Mr Modi’s engagement rate – clearly bots aren’t retweeting?! And you insecure weaklings, how about answering the Questions RG raises – jobs, inflation, poverty anyone?”
“Get real – get out of your fake news factory,” she added.
Also Read: For Twitter boss Elon Musk, now comes the hard part
On Friday, Musk, the world’s richest man completed his USD 44 billion acquisition of Twitter, and finally took control of the micro-blogging site, after a chaotic and protracted battle. His first tweet after the takeover was, “the bird is freed”.