Twitter labels BJP IT cell chiefs' tweet on farmers' protest as 'Manipulated Media'

Twitter, on December 2, labeled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT Cell Head Amit Malviyas' tweet on farmers' protest as 'manipulated media'. Amit Malviya had quoted Rahul Gandhi's tweet and posted an edited clip from the farmers' protest a few days ago.

"Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time," The BJP leader had written in the Tweet.

Fact checkers had also called Malviya out regarding the tweet, "Amit Malviya's tweet is a classic example of the straw man fallacy," fact checking website Alt News' report read.

According to Alt News, the photograph was captured by PTI photographer Ravi Choudhary; the pictures are also present on Ravi's Instagram account.

"I clicked the picture from the other side and it cannot be said with certainty whether the baton touched the farmer or not because there was a lot of commotion at the time. The police were lathi-charging at the protestors and the farmer was running in the other direction to save himself. He may have been hit by another cop earlier if not this one." Ravi was quoted by Alt News as saying.

BOOM, in a report said that they tracked the farmer down and identified him as Sukhdev Singh. His report read that Sukhdev sustained injuries to his forearm, back and calf muscle.

"My arms have turned black and blue where the lathi hit me and there are bruises on my back too. They can say I have not been hit but I am right here if they want to come and see my injuries," Sukhdev said (as quoted by BOOM).

Soon after, Malviya's tweet went viral; he was called out by social media.

Flagging on the Tweet was "the first such incident where a tweet in India was flagged under this category by Twitter". The social media platform introduced a new policy named the "Synthetic and manipulated media policy", in February. The policy labels "Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context", if the platform finds content which is 'deceptively shared' and pose "serious harm".

According to Twitter, some of the factors which are considered for taking a decision include:

• whether the content has been substantially edited in a manner that fundamentally alters its composition, sequence, timing, or framing;

• any visual or auditory information (such as new video frames, overdubbed audio, or modified subtitles) that has been added or removed; and

• Whether media depicting a real person have been fabricated or simulated.

If a tweet contains the any content from the listed three categories is deemed to be labeled 'manipulated media'. If a tweet contains Media that meet all three criteria-is synthetic or manipulated, is shared in a deceptive manner, and is likely to cause harm –it will be removed; repeated violations would lead to the permanent suspension of the user's account.

It was not the first time that, Malviya was called out by fact checkers.In June,Malviya shared an image alleging that Sonia Gandhi and her family went to China when "none of the Gandhi family members held public office in 2008", the image which he shared was from the Food Festival organized by the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, in 2017.