'Follower counts can and do fluctuate': Twitter on Rahul Gandhi's letter on 'shadow ban'

Responding to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s letter to Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal, a spokesperson of the micro-blogging site on Thursday said that the US-based company has ‘has zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam’.

Rahul Gandhi, in a letter dated December 27 alleged that social media platform Twitter is unknowingly complicit in curbing free and fair speech in India. He has alleged that there is a shadow ban on him which restricts his tweets and the number of people who can follow him.

The twitter spokesperson said that the company fight spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale with machine learning tools, and as part of those consistent and ongoing efforts to ensure a healthy service and credible accounts, follower counts can and do fluctuate.

Also Watch| PM Modi's Twitter account compromised: govt's probe team to reach out to Twitter, Google

Rahul had further written that he has been “reliably, albeit discreetly, informed by people at Twitter India that they are under immense pressure by the government to silence” his voice. Along with the letter, Rahul also sent an analysis of data from his Twitter account showing that his followers have barely increased for several months since August when his account was suspended for eight days. Currently, he has 19.5 million followers.

The WSJ claims to have independently verified the claim using two social media analytics companies Emplifi and Social Blade. The analysis shows that he gained on an average nearly four lakh new users per month from January to July 2021. This figure sharply dipped post the suspension. From September to December, the data shows, that per month he has gained less than 2,500 followers.