Shri Shrikant Sharma has filed a case against Twitter India’s MD Manish Maheshwari for suppressing freedom of speech by arbitrarily suspending the Twitter account of True Indology following his public spat with IPS officer D Roopa in relation to a tweet regarding bursting crackers during the Hindu festival of Deepawali.
Twitter has often been accused of suppressing right-wing voices while supporting radical leftist viewpoints and thereby acting as a left-liberal propaganda tool instead of being a neutral social media (SM) platform allowing common citizens to freely express their views and thoughts irrespective of their ideology.
#BigBreaking FIR lodged against@TwitterIndia MD @manishm by Mr Shrikant Sharma at #Vidisha for suppressing FoE by arbitrarily suspending #TrueIndology n imposing radical #Leftist views @KapilMishra_IND @misskaul @kanikamittal @PayalKamat @shaguftakamran2 @bhartijainTOI pic.twitter.com/V1vmza9hlY
— Legal Rights Observatory- LRO (@LegalLro) November 22, 2020
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Sharma said that they were registering a case against Twitter MD Manish Maheshwari for suspending the Twitter account of True Indology which helped in bringing out facts regarding Bharatiya culture and Hindu Dharma. He opined that SM is a platform available to every common citizen to put forward his view. He also added that the said handle was suspended without any inquiry.
BJYM leader Gaurav Gohad had also registered a case against Maheshwari at the Gohad police station located in MP’s Bhind district. The BJYM leader also reiterated what Sharma had said and stated that True Indology had been suspended without any inquiry. He added that the kind of discrimination practiced by Twitter needs to be put to an end.
Gohad was of the opinion that this move by Twitter violates the freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Bharatiya constitution and guaranteed to every Bharatiya citizen. He also emphasized that Twitter has taken such arbitrary decisions against handles propagating rightist ideologies earlier as well and this is nothing but cultural jihad by Twitter.
#TrueIndology suspension, another police complaint filed in MP by @BJYM leader @Gaurav_gohad against @TwitterIndia MD @manishm! Yestrday MP HM @drnarottammisra hd revealed FIR against NetFlix officials-Compare😎, @Tejasvi_Surya @misskaul @kanikamittal @PayalKamat @shaguftakamran2 pic.twitter.com/OpfQZLi9KW
— Legal Rights Observatory- LRO (@LegalLro) November 24, 2020
After being suspended from Twitter, True Indology (TI) had put up a Facebook (FB) post pointing out how his account was suspended minutes after Bengaluru IPS officer D Roopa threatened him on Twitter saying “your time is up”. In a detailed post, TI says that his account was suspended since he refused to share his personal details which the IPS officer had sought from him during the course of an argument between the two regarding references to the use of crackers in Hindu granthas.
He says that Twitter suspended his account within 5 minutes without giving him any reason or sending him a mail regarding the same as is customary before suspending any account. He also said that he was digitally eliminated for refusing to disclose his personal details to the IPS officer.
In an indirect admission of IPS officer Roopa’s involvement in getting TI’s Twitter account suspended, a source close to the IPS officer is believed to have told The Print “such pseudo-intellectuals who spread lies and hate in the name of knowledge and create communal tensions should be banned”.
While it remains to be seen what action the police would be taking on the basis of both the complaints cited above, the larger question is about Twitter arbitrarily suspending voices, not in sync with its views thereby disregarding the basic freedom of speech and expression guaranteed to every citizen by the Bharatiya constitution.
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