New Delhi
Raids by Delhi Police on the offices of Twitter in Delhi and Gurgaon on Monday were slammed by the Congress, saying, “BJP is running scared of its lies and fraud getting caught and being branded as manipulated and fraudulent by social media platforms.”
Its general secretary and chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the police are acting on the intermediary rules giving powers to the government to direct people to take off various posts which have not even come into play since they are to become effective only from May 25.
Surjewala said the people will be dreaded from posting on the social media once the intermediary rules come into force and more dreaded will be the social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Google and Twitter as they will not be accepted as “intermediaries” as they will become liable for criminal action unless they immediately remove the posts objected by the government and provide the identity of the user from whose account the objectionable message originated.
He said the police are making lame-duck attempt to hide the fraudulent “Toolkit” produced by the BJP leaders, forging the Congress documents. The government has let loose the police on Twitter after it removed the posts of the BJP leaders, calling them as "manipulated."
"None less than the IT Minister (Ravi Shankar Prasad) himself and half a dozen other ministers have also tweeted this manipulated and fraudulent media and they are now social media platforms as they are scared that their lies are going to get exposed,” he said.
He reminded the PM "free speech and rights to express opinion are our fundamental rights in this country and you cannot subjugate the Constitution, you can't stifle free speech and you will not be able to suppress the voice of the young or voice of people of this country, that is the cardinal principle."
