A tweet by the BJP national spokesperson, Sambit Patra has been flagged by Twitter as manipulated media. This has placed a huge setback for BJP which is trying to cover up the mismanagement of the response of the government towards the second wave of Covid19.  The microblogging site explained that they can label the tweets which have been deceptively altered or fabricated.

In the tweet which has been flagged as manipulated media by Twitter, Sambit mentioned about the Congress toolkit which is pushing ahead a PR exercise under the garb of helping the people affected by the pandemic.

Friends look at the #CongressToolKit in extending help to the needy during the Pandemic!
More of a PR exercise with the help of “Friendly Journalists” & “Influencers” than a soulful endeavor.

Read for yourselves the agenda of the Congress:#CongressToolKitExposed pic.twitter.com/3b7c2GN0re

— Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 18, 2021

The microblogging site has frequently used similar warnings in the waning days of the Trump administration in the United States as the outgoing president Donald Trump used his personal handle to spread misinformation about voter fraud having cost him the November 2020 election. Eventually, Donald Trump was permanently suspended from the social media platform despite having millions of followers.

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India, where the platform has one of the largest user bases, and where it has faced flak from the government for not acting upon certain accounts and content which were flagged to it as capable of inciting violence, has been kept out the list of countries where the program is being expanded.

As part of the expanded program, Twitter will add labels to identify verified accounts of key ministerial personnel such as foreign ministers, ambassadors, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders.

The Congress had complained to Twitter that the ensemble of pages, circulated as the party’s ‘toolkit’ by top BJP leaders, was fake. Following this, the decision to flag Patra’s tweet came late on Thursday evening.

In order to access such media, Twitter looks at whether editing has been done in a manner that fundamentally alters the content composition, shared in a deceptive manner and is likely to impact public safety or cause harm.

On May 18, Sambit Patra has shared another Tweet saying about Congress using toolkits to tarnish the image of India. The images shared were regarding the central vista project.

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BJP leaders like B L Santhosh, Smriti Irani, Harsh Vardhan, Hardeep Singh Puri, and Piyush Goyal had shared those tweets by Sambit and other similar tweets pointing out the toolkit issue, which has been flagged by Twitter.

Fact-checking website Alt News had pointed out that the documents had been manipulated to include a Congress “research department” letterhead.

Alt News had reported, “An analysis by Alt News has revealed that the AICC Research Department letterhead has been tampered with in the toolkit document, raising questions about its authenticity.”