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IT min blocks Jharkhand Cong’s social media account over Shah's doctored video
The official Twitter handle of Jharkhand Congress had tweeted the doctored clip of Shah’s campaign speech on April 28 with this text in Hindi
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) issued an emergency blocking order against Jharkhand Congress’s official X account on Wednesday (May 1), a first for the social media account of an official national party in India under the provision, and that too in the midst of the general elections.
HT could not determine if the blocking order was issued against any other accounts and tweets, but has learnt that this blocking order was issued because the handle had tweeted the viral doctored clip of home minister Amit Shah’s campaign speech over which at least one FIR has been filed in Delhi.
The official Twitter handle of Jharkhand Congress (@incjharkhand) tweeted the doctored clip of Shah’s campaign speech on April 28 with this text in Hindi, “Breaking. Amit Shah’s campaign speech quickly went viral in which he is saying that if the BJP forms the government again, then OBC and SC/ST reservation will be ended.” As of Wednesday night, the post had 81,900 views, 483 reposts/retweets, 72 quote tweets, 885 likes and 18 bookmarks.
To be sure, X labelled it as ‘Manipulated media’, which is, as per its policy, any “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm”.
The blocking order was requested by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre of the ministry of home affairs. The I4C’s Threat Analysis Unit is the unit that has been looking at the case of Shah’s edited video. This is the first time that Section 69A of the Information Technology Act has been used to block an official social media account of a political party.
According to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, the government is empowered to block content online for six specific reasons — in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or to prevent incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above.
Of these six reasons, the government has often cited “public order” as the reason for blocking the content critical of the government, which experts say is a particularly broad provision stepping into the realm of censorship.
“The action taken here is terribly disproportional. Taking down the tweet would have fulfilled the objective but blocking an entire account, that too an account of an opposition party while the elections are underway, spells trouble for our democratic ecosystem,” Radhika Roy, litigation counsel at the Internet Freedom Foundation, said.
Shah’s video has been erroneously described as a ‘deepfake’ when the video was actually edited to make it seem as if he had said, “When the BJP government will come into power, we will end the unconstitutional reservation for SC, ST and OBC.”
In the unedited video, he is heard saying, “When the BJP government will come into power, we will end the unconstitutional reservation for Muslims. This is the right of Telangana’s SC, ST and OBC. This right will be given to them and we will end reservations for Muslims.” No new content was added but it was edited to change the meaning of the speech.
Election to Jharkhand’s 14 Lok Sabha seats is yet to happen and will occur across four phases with polls on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
