Facebook Temporarily Banned a #ResignModi Hashtag; Says It Was a Mistake

Amid the rising COVID-19 cases in India, a hashtag, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had surfaced on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. As the #ResignModi hashtag was being used by those criticising the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook blogged the posts tagged with it before restoring them hours later. This, stoked a controversy, where critics of the government blamed Facebook for giving into the demands of the government and supressing voices that are critical towards the Prime Minister. While Facebook restored the hashtag few hours after blocking it, people called out the social media giant for sensoring voices. According to reports, the #ResignModi hashtag had over 12,000 posts critical of the BJP-led government’s handling of the ongoing COVID-19 surge in the country.

In a clarification, Facebook said that it temporarily blocked the hashtag as a mistake, and not because the Indian government asked it to. The company has since restored the hashtag, but that did little in terms of damage control. People took to Twitter to call out the social media giant, accusing it of sensoring voices that are critical of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the country. “We temporarily blocked this hashtag by mistake, not because the Indian government asked us to, and have since restored it,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted in a Bloomberg report as saying.

While the hashtag was blocked, users searching for #ResignModi were met with a message that said that the posts were “temporarily hidden here” because “some content in those posts goes against our community standards.” After the hashtag was restored, Facebook’s Communications Policy Director Andy Stone said in a tweet that the company is looking into what exactly happened. According to a Buzzfeed News report, the hashtag was hidden within India, US, Canada, and England.

India is currently battling the worst COVID-19 surge that has been witnessed anywhere across the world yet. The country most recently recorded about 3.8 lakh new cases and more than 3,600 deaths in the last 24 hours. Recently, the country clocked 2,00,000 COVID-related deaths. In order to tackle the ongoing healthcare emergency, the government has initiated the vaccination of all adult Indians starting May 1. The registrations for the vaccine for all Indian adults began yesterday via the government’s Co-WIN portal and the Aarogya Setu app.

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