Twitter suspends 300 accounts after tractor rally went violent

A visual from Delhi tractor rally | Credit: Diwakar Sharma

Twitter on Wednesday said it suspended more than 300 accounts engaged in spam and platform manipulation as the farmers' tractor rally went violent in the national capital on the 72nd Republic Day.

The farmers swarmed the Red Fort and waved farmer union flags from its ramparts. They even hoisted farmer union flags as well as a pennant with a Sikh religious symbol from a flagpole.

A Twitter spokesperson told IANS that the company has taken strong enforcement action to protect the conversation on the service from attempts to incite violence, abuse and threats that could trigger the risk of offline harm by blocking certain terms that violate our rules for trends.

"Using a combination of technology and human review, Twitter worked at scale and took action on hundreds of Tweets that have been in violation of the Twitter Rules and suspended more than 300 accounts engaged in spam and platform manipulation," the spokesperson informed.

The Delhi Police on Sunday had warned that 308 Twitter handles have been generated to create confusion over the tractor rally proposed by protesting farmers on Republic Day.

"Through intelligence and various other agencies, we have continuously been getting inputs regarding a threat to create disturbance in the tractor rally. Nearly 308 Twitter handles have been generated from Pakistan to create confusion," said Dependra Pathak, Special Commissioner Police, Intelligence, Delhi Police.

The microblogging platform said they were monitoring the situation closely and remain vigilant, "and strongly encourage those on the service to report anything they believe is in violation of the rules."

In all, 86 policemen were injured in the violence as farmers marched inside Delhi with their tractors ahead of the scheduled time agreed upon with the police authorities of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

A total of 22 FIRs have been filed by the Delhi Police so far in connection with the violence witnessed during the farmers' tractor rally, officials said on Wednesday.

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