A day after the unfortunate scenes that transpired in the national capital, Twitter said that it suspended more than 300 accounts on its platform engaged in spam and platform manipulation as the tractor rally went violent on the 72nd Republic Day.
Violent scenes erupted in various parts of Delhi-NCR as some of the protesters swarmed the Red Fort.
A Twitter spokesperson told IANS that the company has taken strong enforcement action to protect the conversation on the service from attempts to incite violence, abuse and threats that could trigger the risk of offline harm by blocking certain terms that violate our rules for trends.
Tech to the rescue
“Using a combination of technology and human review, Twitter worked at scale and took action on hundreds of Tweets that have been in violation of the Twitter Rules and suspended more than 300 accounts engaged in spam and platform manipulation,” the spokesperson informed.
After careful observation by the Delhi Police, it highlighted over 300 accounts on Twitter that had been created to spread fake news and create confusion over the tractor rally on Republic Day.
“Through intelligence and various other agencies, we have continuously been getting inputs regarding a threat to create disturbance in the tractor rally. Nearly 308 Twitter handles have been generated from Pakistan to create confusion,” said Dependra Pathak, Special Commissioner Police, Intelligence, Delhi Police.
Keeping an eye
The social media platform also said that they were monitoring the situation closely and were proactive to take down any accounts that were involved in creating fake news around the incident. Twitter as requested users on its platform “to report anything they believe is in violation of the rules.”
The violence resulted in 86 policemen being injured as protestors marched inside Delhi with their tractors. Many of the protesters did not take the designated route and started their march into Delhi before the scheduled time.
A total of 22 FIRs have been filed by the Delhi Police so far in connection with the violence witnessed during the farmers’ tractor rally.
-with inputs from IANS.
