New Delhi: The Union government on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that Twitter violated principles of natural justice when it tagged the tweets of some BJP leaders as ‘manipulated media’, saying the information technology ministry has asked the social media platform to be ‘transparent and equitable’ in applying the tag.The government had sent a letter to Twitter in May this year, after tweets by BJP leaders such as Sambit Patra, Raman Singh and others about a purported ‘Congress toolkit’ were tagged as containing manipulated media. In the letter, the Union government had claimed that the tag had “pre-judged, prejudiced” the investigation by the Delhi police, which was looking into the matter.However, as The Wire had noted then, this was the first time the government cited due process in defence of a social media post. Indeed, the IT ministry had in the past sent takedown requests to Twitter in matters where the police had either filed FIRs or were conducting an investigation.In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, ministry of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar took the same line of reasoning. He said that Twitter had been told that they are “violating the principle of natural justice and urged Twitter to be transparent and equitable in applying the criteria.”He said though Twitter had informed the government that the labelling of certain messages as ‘Manipulated Media’ has been done as per their “Synthetic and Manipulated Media Policy”, no specificdetails of how this policy became applicable have been shared.Twitter’s policy on designating content as manipulated media says, “…we may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated. In addition, you may not share deceptively altered media on Twitter in ways that mislead or deceive people about the media’s authenticity where threats to physical safety or other serious harm may result.”Twitter had employed similar warnings on tweets by former US President Donald Trump about voter fraud after the 2020 elections. Trump’s account was eventually suspended permanently for violation of its policy and further risk of incitement of violence after the storming of the Capitol.Chandrasekhar also told the Lok Sabha that the issue of labelling of user tweets as manipulated media does not come under the purview of the new IT Rules. He added that Twitter has not complied with the Rules and it has not appointed key functionaries such as the chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and the resident grievance officer.