Rahul Gandhi Alleges Twitter Account Restricted At Government's Behest

Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote last month to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal accusing the social media giant of being unwittingly complicit in "curbing free and fair speech in India".

In a letter dated December 27, 2021, Gandhi told Agarwal that his monthly Twitter follower increase has fallen drastically since his account was blocked in August 2021.

At the time of writing, Gandhi had over 19.6 million followers on Twitter.

Gandhi's account was locked in the first week of August 2021 after he shared a photo of the parents of a Dalit girl who was allegedly raped and killed in a Delhi crematorium.

Providing data to back his claim, Gandhi alleged that his average new monthly followers have fallen to almost zero since August 2021. He also claimed that he had been "reliably informed" by people at Twitter India that the India government is pressuring the social media company to silence his voice.

BOOM analysed the personal Twitter accounts of Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah using the analytics website Social Blade and found that Gandhi's follower growth has lagged that of Modi and Shah.

From January to July 2021, Gandhi gained 23,88,060 new followers on Twitter. During the same time, Modi gained 55,36,039 new followers while Shah gained 22,82,615 new followers.

From January to August 2021, both Shah and Gandhi's accounts grew at the same rate with Gandhi gaining more followers than Shah in May and June. However, while Shah has gained more than 2,00,000 new followers every month since July, Gandhi saw his rate drop drastically.

From August to December 2021, Gandhi's follower count rose by just 75,521 while Modi and Shah gained 38,76,346 and 14,23,624 new followers respectively.

Gandhi's highest weekly increase in followers since August 2021 until the end of the year was 3,980 new followers in the week beginning August 9, 2021. For the first time since the week beginning August 2, 2021, Gandhi saw his follower count rise by five figures when he saw 37,166 new followers in the week beginning January 17, 2022.

A Twitter spokesperson told BOOM that uses machine learning to purge millions of spam and malicious accounts which results in accounts losing followers.

"Follower counts are a visible feature, and we want everyone to have confidence that the numbers are meaningful and accurate. Twitter has a zero tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam. We fight spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale with machine learning tools, and as part of those consistent and ongoing efforts to ensure a healthy service and credible accounts, follower counts can and do fluctuate.

"We remove millions of accounts each week for violating our policies on platform manipulation and spam. While some accounts notice a minor difference, in certain cases the number could be higher. We understand this change can be concerning, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation," the spokesperson said.

BOOM's query on if Agarwal replied to Gandhi elicited no response from the spokesperson.