Centre forces social media to curb dissent: Congress

New Delhi, Jan 27 (Agency) The Congress on Thursday launched a fresh attack on the Modi government, accusing it of pressurizing the social media including Twitter to arbitrarily block or restrict the reach of its leaders, especially Rahul Gandhi.

“The government is trying to forcefully oppress social media as these are its alternate channels of mass communication,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate told reporters here in response to a question on the former party’s President letter to Twitter claiming a drop in followers. Last month, in a letter addressed to the Twitter, the Congress MP said his average number of new monthly followers dropped and urged the micro-blogging site to look into the matter. He advised Twitter not to become a “pawn”. “Pressurising these channels to arbitrarily block and suspend account, to restrict reach of our leaders especially Rahul Gandhi is an attempt to curb dissent,” the Congress spokesperson said. Shrinate said that social media should be held accountable to how will they hold up “free speech”. Rahul Gandhi has over 19.6 million followers on Twitter.