Chandigarh, February 26, 2021 : Reacting to the announcement made by Union Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad about new norms for social media in the country that any content that is flagged off by the authorities need to be taken down within 36 hours by the social media sites, the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP ) state president and MP Bhagwant Mann said this was another way by which Prime Minister Narendra Modi government want to curtail the voices of democracy. He said that vver the last few days the Modi government had been shaken to the core with the immense response that the farmers’ protest had been getting.
He said that the farmers, labourers and the people of the country had been opposing the Modi government and expressing their displeasure through social media. The farmers’ movement was also getting a lot of support from the people of India and abroad on social media. “The farmers have been able to use social media to spread their message while the government tried its best to suppress their voices. Fearing protests and resentment of the people, the Modi government is now trying to regulate social media so that they can suppress the voices of the people,” he added.
Lashing out at PM Narendra Modi, Mann said that Modi was slowly turning the country into an Orwellian state where all sources of information were monitored and regulated. “Modi is ruling the country in a dictatorial manner and he along with Union Home Minister Amit Shah wants to enslave the people of the country. To suppress the tone of the protest, they are adopting various governmental tactics and filing false cases against the protesters and putting them in jail,” he added. Mann said the people who had disagreements with the Modi government were being tortured. He said that the government was misleading the people through these norms.
Mann said that the justification given by the IT Minister was that such steps are being taken to curtail fake news that incites violence and also to stop terrorists and anti-nationals from using social media. “However, what is ironic is that the BJP themselves are the biggest factory of lies that pushes fake news on social media to incite violence. Will these new regulations be used to target their own trolls or will this be used to suppress the voices of the people who speak against you and who you term as anti-nationals?,” questions Mann. He said it was very unfortunate that the government elected by the people was enacting such regulations to suppress the voice of the people.
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