Twitter emerges with trends every day. The microblogging site today is dominated by the tweets under the hashtag #ManipulatedMedia.
Why #ManipulatedMedia is trending on Twitter?
BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya’s tweet about farmers’ protest has been flagged as ‘manipulated media’ by the microblogging site, evoking curiosity among its users. It was, perhaps, the first such incident where a tweet in India was flagged under this category by Twitter.
The head of BJP’s IT Cell took to Twitter in a bid to call out Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi had tweeted a PTI photograph showing a policeman wielding his baton against a protesting elderly farmer in Delhi. He had also tweeted in Hindi: “It is a very sad photo. Our slogan was ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ but today PM Modi’s arrogance made the jawan stand against the farmer. This is very dangerous.”
In reply to Gandhi’s tweet, Malviya shared a video clip labelling it as “reality”, which showed the policeman’s baton not touching the farmer.
Incidentally, this tweet by Malviya has now been flagged by Twitter as “Manipulated Media”. Twitter though is yet to provide additional information as to why it proceeded to label Malviya’s tweet the same.
Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time. https://t.co/9wQeNE5xAP pic.twitter.com/b4HjXTHPSx
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) November 28, 2020
Fact-checking website BOOM had also contacted the farmer, Sukhdev Singh, who said that he was indeed hit by the baton. While describing the sequence of events, he said that police were firing tear gas shells and wielding lathis.
“I saw them wielding their lathis and tried to stop it using my hand but it instead hit my forearm, just below my wrist,” he said, showing his injuries to the fact-checking portal. He further added that the lathi (baton) did hit my calf but the injury isn’t severe because I was protected by the clothes I wear underneath.
What is Twitter’s Synthetic and Manipulated media policy?
Twitter “may” label tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media, including videos, audio and images, and will remove such content, if they are “deceptively shared,” and pose “serious harm”. Users will be able to get more information from “reputable sources” on a piece of content labelled as “manipulated media”.
Here are the Tweets:
Twitter marks BJP IT cell chief, Amit Malviya’s tweet carrying a video depicting a clash between a soldier and a farmer as manipulated media.
Malviya is the first political person in India to get flagged by twitter. Hope, twitter won’t discriminate as per political affiliations.
— Sonam Mahajan (@AsYouNotWish) December 2, 2020
Good job @Twitter @TwitterIndia marking Mr. Malviya tweet as manipulated media. Finally some good news for Indian Twitter users. pic.twitter.com/i2FtCfOYAW
— Jasmine (@Jasminesmileyy) December 1, 2020
BREAKING: Twitter flags Malviya’s tweet on farmer protests as a content with “manipulated media”.
Amit Malviya had posted a video in response to a pic posted by Rahul Gandhi on farmers protest. pic.twitter.com/ciDi4T5JyP
— Prashant Kumar (@scribe_prashant) December 2, 2020
Twitter decides manipulated media based on manipulated Fact checkers.
— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) December 2, 2020
#ManipulatedMedia #AmitMalviya K chakker mein ye bechare kab tak expose honge ?
Fake propagandists posing as techies ? https://t.co/nF2Nm2GUDx— Sakshi Joshi (@sakshijoshii) December 2, 2020
Twitter has marked most instances of the above video as ‘manipulated media’. This suggests that there’s an element of automation that Twitter is using to mark identical media with the same tag. Facebook recently refused to respond to @AltNews on the question of automation. pic.twitter.com/igInTvbuoV
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) December 2, 2020
International media is covering the issue…
But Manipulated Media aka Godi media is still playing in kindergarten #Tractor2Twitter pic.twitter.com/0vr3U3TbrO
— Dapinder Kaur (@kaur8404376) December 2, 2020
Pic 1: Manipulated Media
Pic 2: Mainly-polluted Media pic.twitter.com/qVnKwnUrAX— Sakshi Arora (@MujeSakshiMaano) December 2, 2020