AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan called for the beheading of Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati in a tweet on Saturday. Despite the passage of ten hours since the tweet was made and multiple citizens highlighting the matter, Twitter is yet to remove the death threat from its platform.
Amanatullah Khan said, “This insult to our prophet is not tolerable to us at all. The tongue and head of this hateful insect should be cut off as punishment. However, Indian laws do not permit this.” The tweet has received over 4000 retweets and 3500 quoted tweets.
Twitter has boasted a lot regarding its stern stance against incitement to violence on its platform. But on this occasion, they appear unwilling to remove a death threat by an elected representative in India. It calls into question the platform’s own resolve towards combating incitement to violence online.
The tweet by Amanatullah Khan was pointed out to Twitter by multiple accounts with huge followers on the platform. Therefore, they cannot say that it was not brought to their attention or that it escaped their notice. Twitter has still not removed the death threat.
It’s such a shame that open threat for beheading can be given on @Twitter & @TwitterSafety neither took down d Tweet nor suspended the a/c. But they will lock & suspend a/c for raising atrocities against Hindus.
— Radharamn Das (@RadharamnDas) April 3, 2021
Hope Gov provides protection for @NarsinghVani & action against MLA https://t.co/9YN54q8LNi
Can you imagine this guy who is MLA & close aide of Kejriwal is calling for BEHEADING of a fellow citizen from @TwitterIndia ‘s platform !@Policy Why there is no action on this incitement of violence/murder ?
— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) April 3, 2021
This is IS style TERRORISM@DelhiPolice Plz#ArrestAmanatullahKhan https://t.co/Oko56LKgUd
Mahatir Muhammad called for a genocide of french ppl when cartoon of M were shown on French govt. building last year.
— Nitin Gupta (@Nitin_Rivaldo) April 3, 2021
Twitter didn’t suspend his account. It won’t suspend Amanatullah’s account either.
Call for violence doesn’t violate twitter rules, if it is by an Islamist! https://t.co/KezJXy8P8X
https://t.co/6f8X2PSTmz@TwitterIndia @TwitterSupport Plz look at open violence threads from this tweet. This is illegal and cannot be given liberty. This handicaps freedom of speech.
— saurabh singh (@saurabhsingh109) April 3, 2021
Multiple people on the platform have uploaded screenshots confirming that they have reported the death threat tweet. However, at the time of writing this report, the tweet was still available on platform.
Twitter has cited its no-tolerance policy towards incitement to violence when it suspended Donald Trump from the platform despite the fact that nowhere did Trump explicitly call for violence. With regards to India, however, Twitter has adopted a hypocritical approach as was evident during the ‘farmer protests’ when it refused to take down tweets that peddled fake news and endangered the law and order situation in India.
