Twitter has suspended two fake accounts being run in the name of the Election Commission (EC). The account used the EC logo as well as the Twitter handle @ElectionComm. Another account used @DalitFederation as its handle. The two accounts have been suspended after the EC asked Twitter to take "decisive action.
The Election Commission's spokesperson confirmed that the Commission does not have its own verified Twitter handle. The fake accounts had a huge following with one of them having 4,751 followers. The EC feared that they could mislead public ahead of Assembly polls in five States and coming up Lok Sabha elections next year. "The EC does not have any presence on Twitter, though it does operate a Facebook handle," said an official of EC on the condition of anonymity.
The media division of the EC asked Twitter to take decisive action against them. Although there were no tweets from these accounts, they had a large following. The Commission has avoided opening an account on Twitter as it does not have the manpower, a dedicated team of professionals or media budget to handle requests and grievances that are likely to flood it once it registers its presence on Twitter," an official said. However, EC has authorised the State chief electoral officers to create a Twitter account of their own.
EC had earlier held talks with Twitter and other social media companies like Google and Facebook to help it track fake news and monitor poll expenditure on social media advertising and publicity. Google, Facebook and Twitter on Monday promised to do more to fight news in India, while refusing to provide any definite timeline for bringing tougher actions that could eliminate the menace of fake news from their platform.