Khamosh! Silencing Of Tweets While COVID Cases Surge Is Kaafi Real

The government must be given credit for being proactive in curtailing the harmful, unchecked spread of tweets.

Kaafi real: So what do we do when we are inundated with a slew of tweets we’d much rather not see? We say “khamosh!”

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

At a time when reports of shortages of hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, and life-saving drugs are emerging from all quarters, the Indian government must be given credit for being proactive in curtailing the harmful, unchecked spread of tweets.

As recently as Saturday, 24 April, micro-blogging site Twitter, complying with the government’s requests, reportedly censored 52 tweets that were critical of India’s handling of the second surge of COVID-19.

Medianama, a news portal that reports on matters pertaining to India’s tech policy, said that some of the posts that have now been censored included tweets by Revanth Reddy, a sitting Member of Parliament; Moloy Ghatak, a West Bengal state minister; actor Vineet Kumar Singh; and two filmmakers, Vinod Kapri and Avinash Das.

So what do we do when we are inundated with a slew of tweets we’d much rather not see? We say “khamosh!”

(Kaafi Real is a series of cartoons on The Quint. You can check out all our other Kaafi Real cartoons here.)