Don't allow Twitter to become a pawn: Rahul Gandhi's letter to CEO Parag Agrawal

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has written to Twitter complaining that his follower count has not increased since his account was temporarily suspended in August 2021 for a tweet about meeting the family members of a Dalit rape victim.

In the letter that he wrote to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on December 27, Gandhi said that he found the matter perplexing and he believed that the “unwitting complicity” of Twitter was curbing free and fair speech in India.

Gandhi said that since he raised the issue of the Dalit girl who died after she was raped, his average monthly follower count has “fallen to nearly zero”.

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“I am writing to you on behalf of more than a billion Indians to not allow Twitter to become a pawn in the destruction of the idea of India… You have an enormous responsibility to ensure that Twitter does not actively help in the growth of authoritarianism in India,” Gandhi wrote.

He also sent along with the letter an analysis of his follower count – comparing it to the follower count of PM Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. Monthly analysis of the follower counts of the four leaders, and a weekly comparison from the week between May 3 to May 10, 2021 to November 22 to November 29, 2021, was part of the analysis.

Congress has said that Gandhi gained anywhere from 220,000 to 640,000 new Twitter followers every month from January to July 2021. But since August 2021, there has been a dramatic fall in the number of new followers.

Gandhi said that in May, his account gained roughly 6,40,000 new followers every month, and an active base of 8,000 to 10,000 followers every day.

“For example, in May 2021, my account gained roughly 6,40,000 new followers. This has been the case for several years until July 2021. Then something strange happened. Since August 2021, the average number of my new monthly Twitter followers has fallen to nearly zero. There is an inflection point after which my Twitter account has been paralysed,” Gandhi wrote. He added that the development coincided with him raising the issue of the Dalit rape victim and the three farm laws which led to unrest and protest by farmers.

He also added that he has been informed by Twitter officials “discreetly” that they are under immense pressure from the Indian government.

In the analysis, which Gandhi said was done by social media experts, Gandhi’s account gained 54,803 followers in August, 2021. In the same period, the analysis details, Modi gained 7,73,134 followers, Shah gained 2,85,059 followers, and Tharoor gained 23,939 followers. In September, October and November, the analysis states that Gandhi lost 132 followers and then gained 2,380 and 2,788 followers, respectively.

The development was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. DH has seen a copy of both the letter and the accompanying analysis, but has not been able to verify the claim independently.

A Twitter spokesperson said that the platform has a zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam. “We fight spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale with machine learning tools, and as part of those consistent and ongoing efforts to ensure a healthy service and credible accounts, follower counts can and do fluctuate. We remove millions of accounts each week for violating our policies on platform manipulation and spam,” the spokesperson said.

Twitter also said that they ask accounts to validate or confirm account details or complete a CAPTCHA test, and accounts that fail to do so within a specified period may be suspended or locked and their follower count will not be reflected.

Congress leaders, on the other hand, said that they have written to Twitter several times before Gandhi sent a letter to Agrawal.

Srivatsa YB, who handles Gandhi’s digital communication, told WSJ that Twitter’s response was not explanatory or satisfactory. “The chronology of events does not corroborate Twitter’s claims,” he said.

Rohan Gupta, chairman of the social media department, said that he fears that Twitter is falling prey to the pressures of the government.

"We have raised issues with the social media accounts of Congress and other leaders as well. But there has been a standard reply; a look at the statistics of last three years will show us results," said Gupta.

Congress said that it did not receive any correspondence from Twitter before August 2021 about anyone reporting against content on Gandhi’s handle. And in August 2021, after Gandhi’s account was blocked, it received three emails from Twitter.

On August 10, Gandhi received an email from Twitter which said that “Twitter has received a request from India regarding” the account. The email has a redacted letter written by BJP MLA Vijay Jolly on July 28, 2021, complaining about tweets on Gandhi’s handle on December 13, 2019, and on Aam Aadmi Party’s Uttar Pradesh handle October 7, 2020 which were defamatory of PM Modi and Jolly. Parts of the complaint in this letter were redacted.

Gandhi was sent a second letter on August 11, which said, “Twitter has received official correspondence from a third-party regarding”. This letter referenced Jolly’s letter again, but carried no redacted material.

He then received a third letter on August 24, 2021, stating that “Twitter has received a request from Cyber Police Station, Crime Branch, CID, Mumbai” for content posted by the account which was in violation of the Information Technology Act 2000.

The development comes weeks before polls to five states are to be held starting February 10. Due to the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Election Commission has curbed on-ground campaigning and parties are increasingly trying to woo voters online.

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