#ResignModi​ Trends on Social Media

 

The News Cover: The number of COVID infections & deaths are on the rise. This is because there is a lack of hospital beds, medical oxygen, and medicines. It is becoming difficult to control the situation which is why people are suffering. Angry citizens have strongly criticised the Modi government's ineptitude in containing the pandemic. People are demanding Modi's resignation as well.

There were many Facebook posts being shared demanding Modi's resignation along with the #ResignModi There were many posts with the hashtag because of which it started trending. Angry netizens widely shared the hashtag because of which it went to the top of the charts. Subsequently Facebook blocked posts on that hashtag. Generally, when people search a hashtag, they are all able to view the same posts. 

But all the posts with #ResignModi had been blocked. USA’s Wall Street Journal was the first news agency to share the news about the blocking of the posts with the hashtag. You may think that people around the world were also unable to views the posts with the hashtag. Well that's not the case. Buzzfeed News said, people around the world could see the posts. The posts were only blocked in India.

 People in the USA, Canada, UK, etc could view the posts with a simple search. However, this wasn't the case in India. The hashtag was blocked for 3 hours in India and citizens were unable to access the posts. International news agencies said that inorder to curb the citizen's critiques against the government's incompetency, the government ordered Facebook to block the hashtag. 

This had led to a huge uproar. International news agencies claim that the government is hand in glove with Facebook to censor posts which are against the government. News outlets claim that despite India being a democracy, the government is asserting their power of censorship through facebook. Citizens were furious when the news came to light shortly after fearing the backlash, the hashtag was unblocked and the posts could be viewed again. 

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said, "The block wasn't intentional but it was a mistake." Stone added that the hashtag was not blocked on the Indian government's recommendation. According to him posts were blocked because they violated their community guidelines. But the hastag has now been restored. 

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology shared a statement on the Koo app saying international news agencies have mischievous intents. Their statements about the removal of the hashtag by the government & Facebook is completely false and misleading. Facebook has made it very clear the blocking of the hashtag was a mistake. The company never said that the government had asked them to do this. Hence, these reports are all untrue."