Chandrayaan-2: Fake Twitter Handles of ISRO Chief K Sivan Mushroom

One of the accounts in ISRO chairman K Sivan’s name had over 30,000 followers.

In the early hours of Saturday, 7 September, Chandrayaan-2 mission faced a setback when Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost communication with its Vikram lander at an altitude of 2.1 km from the lunar surface.

The entire country stood by ISRO and its chairman K Sivan. Amidst all this, a fake Twitter account was made in his name, and it garnered over 30,000 followers.

You can find the archived version of the account here.

A clip of him being consoled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after they lost communication with the lander went viral. It was also tweeted by this Twitter page.

The account also shared a link to another Twitter account allegedly of the office of Sivan.

MULTIPLE TWITTER ACCOUNTS IN THE NAME OF ISRO CHAIRMAN

Another account, which was later deleted, had over 19,000 followers.

Yet another account, created on September 2019, had 206 followers.

WHAT WE FOUND

The accounts in the name of Dr K Sivan are fake and are not made or controlled by the chairman himself. The Quint spoke to an ISRO spokesperson who said Dr Sivan does not have an official Twitter account.

The organisation on Sunday confirmed that it has been successful in locating the Vikram lander on the lunar surface and is trying to re-establish contact with it.

FAKE ISRO ACCOUNT

A fake account of ISRO has also popped up. A handle by the name of ‘ISRO Official Update’ with Twitter handle name ‘@shivraj_office’ claims to be the official Twitter account of ISRO.

On analysing the activity of this Twitter account, we also came across a few posts that were made by the Twitter account. The posts are political in nature and unrelated, raising questions on the account’s credibility.

However, it must be noted that the official Twitter account of ISRO is @isro. Further, ISRO has now issued a clarification notifying people about these fake accounts.

It is noticed that accounts in the name of Kailasavadivoo Sivan is operational on many Social media. This is to clarify that Dr. K Sivan, Chairman, ISRO does not have any personal accounts.

For official accounts of ISRO, please see https://t.co/DKhLvUwK1P

— ISRO (@isro) September 9, 2019

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