'Several Twitter users claiming to be Muslim took to Twitter this week to share an identical piece of text announcing their support for Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was signed into law by President Ramnath Kovind on Thursday... When Alt News examined the Twitter profiles and previous messages of some of the people declaring support for the Act, it found that several among them used to identify as Hindus. The sudden shift to Muslim identities occurred after the citizenship legislation was introduced in Parliament earlier this month...'
'...In the offending tweet from October 24, @RealHistoriPix called out a BJP MP for not visiting the family of 42-year-old Pancharam Rithadia from Chembur – who killed himself by jumping in front of a train over police inaction in finding his daughter who had gone missing in April 2019. During the funeral last week on October 25, hundreds took to the streets to protest against the police, and some violence also broke out.
'Twitter has been accused of bowing to Indian censorship and suppressing freedom of speech in Kashmir, after nearly one million tweets were removed. Almost 100 accounts were also made inaccessible to locals in the last two years, spurring claims that Twitter is contradicting the very values it purports to uphold. The findings were revealed in a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Friday, showing that Twitter agreed to block more accounts in the region than in every other country combined...'
'A doctor attached to the Agartala Government Medical College & GBP Hospital has been suspended by the Tripura government for a social media comment directed at chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb. The tweets and a Facebook post furnished by the government to the doctor, Kaushik Chakraborty, also include a comment opposing the BJP’s attempt to bring the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill prior to the last general elections. Among other portfolios, the chief minister is also in charge of the health and family welfare department.
'On August 10, 2018, the Indian government informed Twitter that an account belonging to Kashmir Narrator, a magazine based in Jammu and Kashmir, was breaking Indian law. The magazine had recently published a cover story on a Kashmiri militant who fought against Indian rule. By the end of the month, Indian police had arrested the journalist who wrote it, Aasif Sultan, and Twitter had withheld the magazine’s account in India, blocking local access to more than 5,000 tweets. As of October 2019, Sultan was still in prison, facing terrorism-related charges that CPJ has repeatedly condemned.
'On Sunday evening, the hashtag #मुस्लिमो_का_संपूर्ण_बहिष्कार (‘Total Boycott of Muslims’) started trending on Twitter, with a large number of right-wing accounts tweeting it en masse. The individuals using the hashtag advocated a range of discriminatory actions against Muslims. These ranged from boycotting the buying of goods and services to advocating a ban on places of religious teaching...
'Opposition JMM termed it as IAS officers' 'compromise' with the Constitution and 'betrayal' of the country... #JharkhandWithModi was also trending on Twitter for some time. Co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair tweeted on Thursday late night that at least 79 tweets were posted by Deputy Commissioners posted in Jharkhand. Some deputy commissioners like East Singhbhum DC (twitter handle @DCEastSinghbhum) posted 12 tweets. Besides them, the tweets with #JharkhandWithModi came from other deputy commissioners including DC Pakur, DC Chatra, DC Latehar and DC Koderma...
'Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement leader Shehla Rashid has been booked for sedition over her tweets in which she alleged that the Armed Forces tortured civilians and ransacked houses in the Valley after Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was revoked, police said on Friday. Rashid has called the charge “frivolous, politically motivated and a pathetic attempt to silence” her.
'The Union home ministry has asked central law enforcement agencies to monitor social media platforms and identify those spreading rumours or hateful content online in the aftermath of the government’s decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. Sources said the ministry was also keeping an eye on social media content critical of the decision to split the state into two Union Territories...'
