Social media platform Twitter’s conduct and claims of being an impartial platform have come under question, as in the last few months, Twitter accounts that are seen as inimical to China and Pakistan are being suspended without any reason being assigned.
This has brought into focus the question as to whether the men and women behind Twitter were working on a global agenda that has been set by China.
The close relationship between China and Pakistan is no state secret and Beijing, for years now, has been extending help, both openly (as in the case of repeatedly stopping Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar from being listed as a terrorist by UN using its veto power) and, covertly, the evidence of which are in the troves with various intelligence agencies of India and other countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Russia.
Close on the heels of the Twitter account of Chinese virologist Dr Li-Meng Yan being suspended after she claimed that Covid-19 was artificially manufactured in a Chinese laboratory and that the Chinese government, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), hid how potent it was for humans, Twitter earlier this week suspended the account of former Taliban commander-turned- “whistleblower” Ehsanullah Ehsan just hours after he tweeted about how he was contacted by the Director General of Pakistan spy agency, ISI, General Faiz Hameed, requesting him not to speak out against the Pakistan Army and the ISI.
Ehsanullah Ehsan, in his tweet, had claimed that he had recorded the conversation that he had with General Hameed. Ehsan is among the most wanted men by the Pakistan Army, ever since he fled from an Army safe house in Rawalpindi.
It is pertinent to mention that as per Ehsanullah Ehsan’s claim, this was the seventh time that his Twitter account has been suspended. “I have only used Twitter to share details about the ISI and Pakistan Army and the way they have been collaborating with organisations like the Haqqani group. I have never put my accounts to any other use. The latest suspension of my Twitter account, which came just hours after I had tweeted about General Hameed, clearly shows that Twitter is following whatever orders it is getting from the ISI. Or else why would they suspend it,” Ehsan told The Daily Guardian from an undisclosed location.
It is pertinent to mention that historical evidence publicly available has shown that Twitter’s “overenthusiasm” to suspend accounts vanishes when similar requests are made by Indian agencies to take down accounts that spread fake news promoting communal tensions in India. Almost all of these accounts have been found to be operating from Pakistan and China.
It is pertinent to mention that Eshanullah Ehsanhad, in the past, written and tweeted about how the Pakistan Army was operating death squads to target dissenters from civil society, political entities and journalists. In an article for The Sunday Guardian earlier, Ehsan, in great details, had shared the details of the cooperation between the Haqqani group and the men at GHQ Rawalpindi.
