Many are posts that criticise the Modi government.
It has been revealed that tweets in India about the country’s Covid-19 crisis and ones that criticise Narendra Modi’s government have been removed.
At the government’s request, Twitter has hidden approximately 50 tweets in India from public view.
Many of them criticised the way Modi’s government has handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
India is currently experiencing a major second wave, with cases passing 300,000 each day. The total number of daily deaths are more than 2,000.
According to Twitter’s filings with the Lumen database, a transparency initiative run by Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Centre which tracks content removal requests, the affected tweets have been taken down in response to a request by the Indian government.
The tweets have been removed from public view in India, but can still be viewed by users overseas.
Many are posts that criticise the Modi government.
However, some appear to have spread false news in relation to the pandemic. One tweet used a misleading photo to describe the impact of the second wave on India’s healthcare system.
Some of the tweets appeared to use various hashtags that call for Modi to resign.
Others suggest that India’s Covid-19 crisis is a ‘ModiMadeDisaster’.
Some tweets have criticised the Kumbh Mela, which is a major festival that involves a ritual dip in various rivers.
Despite the concerns that it would increase Covid-19 cases, many people continued with the tradition.
More than 5,000 people from the Mela had tested positive as of April 17, 2021.
Lumen Takedown Request – Ap… by The Wire
The content removal list also included a few tweets that were posted by verified accounts.
This included politicians like the Congress’ Revanth Reddy and Pawan Khera, Moloy Ghatak, of the West Bengal government.
Lumen Takedown Request – Ap… by The Wire
Removed tweets were also posted by filmmakers Avinash Das and Vinod Kapri.
Das posted a photo of patients lying in a tent.
He claimed that it is from Gujarat’s Tapi district and that it was symbolic of the “Gujarat healthcare model”.
A tweet posted by ‘Sayed Bukhari’ is also not accessible in India.
The verified account identifies itself as the special assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan.
While it is unclear under what provision the Indian government has asked Twitter to remove the tweets, in the past, the IT ministry usually uses Section 69A of the IT Act.
The Wire reported that most of the tweets slam the Modi government over its handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
For example, Congress MP Revanth Reddy tweeted on April 17, 2021, that India was recording over 200,000 cases, that the healthcare system was “collapsing” and that it was a “#ModiMadeDisaster”.
Congress party spokesperson Pawan Kehra had tweeted about the “collective silence” around the Kumbh Mela and election rallies.
West Bengal minister Moloy Ghatak had referred to Modi as “Nero”. He also claimed that Modi underplayed India’s Covid-19 situation.
The tweets were removed from public view.
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