After Elon Musk takes over Twitter, the former Congress president hoped the microblogging platform would act against hate speech and fact check more robustly. He shared a chart showing the effect ‘manipulation’ had on his account last year.
Rahul Gandhi’s message
The Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi hoped that Twitter would now act against hate speech, check facts more robustly, and not suppress the voice of the opposition in India, soon after billionaire Elon Musk took over the social media giant and fired four of its top management.
Previously, Gandhi’s Twitter handle was temporarily locked after he shared a picture of a rape victim and received a notice from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). He had not used his account on the microblogging website for some time after that. The Congress leader has been using his Twitter handle to attack the Narendra Modi government often.
“Congrats @elonmusk. I hope @Twitter will now act against hate speech, fact check more robustly, and will no longer stifle the opposition’s voice in India due to government pressure,” Gandhi tweeted.
Congrats @elonmusk.
I hope @Twitter will now act against hate speech, fact check more robustly, and will no longer stifle the opposition’s voice in India due to government pressure. pic.twitter.com/j2unZeYYj6
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 28, 2022
Act against hate speech
The 52-year-old also shared a data illustration showing how his Twitter account has been manipulated from January 2021 to September 2022.
The graph indicates that from January 2021, his followers have increased from over 17 million to over 19 million (August 2021). According to the graph, after his tweet about a rape victim in August 2021, his follower growth was “suppressed” until Wall Street Journal “exposed” the platform in February 2022.
After that, his account started to gain followers again reaching 21 million in September 2022.
Elon Musk closed the deal to buy Twitter and tweeted: “The bird is freed”, soon after completing the whopping USD 44 billion takeover of the website and firing four of its top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde.
