Hyderabad, Jan 10 (UNI) From being a neutral social platform, Twitter became a politically biased entity, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Sunday and strongly condemned its unjustified and unilateral action in permanently suspending the personal account of US President Donald Trump.
Partisan positions are for politicians and political parties to take, not for 'Technology Companies, Mr K Krishna Saagar Rao, Chief Spokesperson, BJP Telangana Unit, in a statement here said.
This pattern of censorship by Twitter and Facebook will set a wrong precedent and endanger freedom of expression in the near future not just in the USA, but across the world, he said.
It's a shame that those who advocate free speech are celebrating US President Donald Trump being suspended from Twitter unilaterally, he pointed out and said that one should understand insulting and censoring a sitting President equals not just insulting 75 million voters who voted for him but an entire nation.
An elected leader of a nation is silenced through suspension of his social media account by a technology company, after being certain that he wouldn't continue as the President anymore, Mr Rao said it reeks of timed opportunism and a brazen political agenda by Twitter.
Dictators, Kings, Oppressive Rulers and Left-Extremists can have Twitter accounts and express freely, but not President of one of the largest nations in the world ? Does Twitter understand democratic rights ? Has Twitter become a 'Global Kangaroo Court' to regulate and judge elected National leaders of democracies ?, he questioned.
The President who holds Nuclear Weapon codes and has governed the USA for four years doesn't warrant judgement on 'responsible expression' by a bunch of technology company executives, the BJP leader said.
It's shocking that immature bias and prejudiced assumption of Twitter has overtaken the expected tolerance to 'freedom of expression', he said.
If in case, the speech by President Donald Trump has incited violence, there is legal recourse and a functional justice system in USA, which can follow a due process to hold him responsible, he said Twitter can't become judge, jury and dispense lopsided sentence by permanently suspending account of a globally popular democratic leader.
Regular people taking sides, that's natural in a democracy. However, a publicly listed Tech-Company making judgment on what is moral, ethical and inciteful is certainly 'none-of-their-business', he maintained.
While, “ I choose not to interfere and comment on internal affairs of another nation, the unjustified and prejudiced decision by the largest social media platform Twitter has pushed me to make this statement.
The interest is singularly to protect universal democratic values and rights of elected representatives and all citizens for freedom of speech”, he added.
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