Spokesperson: Ms. Supriya Shrinate: She said that in a very disturbing statement that we read on Twitter, which is now called ‘X’, last night, the platform clarified that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had issued directives to delete certain posts from political platforms. One of those posts was about Electoral Bonds. I think the Election Commission is well within its rights... As an election regulator, the Election Commission of India (ECI), it’s incumbent upon the Commission... It’s incumbent upon those people to ensure free and fair elections happen. It is also incumbent upon them to ensure that whenever somebody breaches the Model Code of Conduct, they should be hauled up. And that includes hate speech, that includes religious references, that includes absolutely crass vulgar statements.
So, which is why it’s very surprising that the Election Commission chose to get a tweet deleted which raises the issue of Electoral Bonds. So, this was an entire extortion racket. This was the entire cut money that was happening. And the country now knows about it and like my leaders said today, Narendra Modi is the champion of corruption which was breeding right under his nose.
It was in February 2024 when the ‘farm movement’… the protest had just started…multiple accounts related to farm movement, of farmer leaders, of associations that were raising the cause of farmers, of Mazdoor Morcha conveners and of course, of the independent journalists covering the farm movement whether it was Mandeep Punia, or Sandeep Singh or Rattan Dhaliwal, Hansraj Meena or Gaon Savera… the pages… They were all restricted. They were either withheld or they were suspended whether it was on Twitter or on Facebook. And what they are consistently doing is, that anybody who is writing on EVMs, anybody who is writing on EVM and VVPAT… they are restricting, they are shadow banning it on YouTube. And they are not letting creators monetize those videos. That’s perhaps the most potent thing that the government can do. A Youtuber lives off the monetization that comes from his or her content. The moment you decide that content cannot be monetized, you are basically telling them not to create content of that genre or on that topic, or on that region. So, from this platform, I would definitely want to say that social media platforms are being curbed at a time when IT rules of 2021 are under contention across courts in India. I think the government of the day must do some soul searching and realize- does suppressing these voices matter more than answering some very relevant, very important questions… that’s not happening. Wednesday, April 17, 2024.