DM Monitoring
NEW DELHI: A hashtag celebrating the revival of a suspended account took Twitter by storm on November 27. ‘#TrueIndologyIsBack’ was used to welcome a handle by the same name, permanently suspended by Twitter twice in the past. Among those delighted by his unapproved return were members and supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
TrueIndology is infamous for routinely sharing fictitious historical claims advocating Hindu supremacy over other faiths, especially Islam. He retained the pseudonym ‘TrueIndology’ upon his comeback for the third time but disclosed a photograph and surname. His previous account which was suspended by Twitter was @TIinExile. The propaganda account now goes by @BharadwajSpeaks. Twitter permanently suspends accounts that violate its rules in order to ensure that the platform provides a safe space for healthy discourse. Furthermore, it prohibits these users from reappearing on the platform using alternate accounts. According to its policy, accounts that promote violence, harassment, abuse, among a plethora of other red flags, are permanently removed.
“Permanently suspending an account will remove it from the global view, and ‘the violator will not be allowed to create new accounts’,” says Twitter.
While it may be difficult to keep a track of all the accounts making a comeback on Twitter with changed usernames, the argument does not hold in the case of TrueIndology. For starters, #TrueIndologyIsBack was the topmost trending hashtag when the new account was made. Bharadwaj also kept the username similar to the original in the initial days. In a matter of a few weeks, TrueIndology 3.0 has managed to gain over 1.7 lakh followers (as of this writing). This account is one among the many suspended handles to have returned on the platform. Alt News sent Twitter multiple emails, messages and tweets informing the tech company of these handles (also listed below in the report). But none of our queries was answered. Twitter has failed to enforce its policy for suspended accounts and overlooked several handles that continue to exist and promote sectarian propaganda.
The reappearance of suspended propaganda handles on Twitter
1. Twitter had suspended @pokershash, an account that used to enjoy the support of top BJP brass.
Below is a glimpse of the content he used to frequently share. That picture of condoms dumped on a roadside was found on several Vietnamese websites from three years ago. It has nothing to do with protests against the citizenship law at Shaheen Bagh.
Twitter suspended @pokershash for targetted harassment of AAP spokesperson Preeti Menon.
But he is now back with the handle ‘@BefittingFacts’ already gaining 46,000 followers. On August 29, he had quote-tweeted a user talking about the weight loss journey of @pokershash and explained how he achieved his target.
