Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey meets Rahul Gandhi to discuss steps to curb fake news

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Monday, November 12, met Congress President Rahul Gandhi and discussed various steps the social network was taking to curb the spread of fake news and boost healthy conversation on its platform.

"Jack Dorsey, the Co Founder and CEO of Twitter dropped in to chat this morning.

"Twitter has grown into the most dominant 'conversation' platform globally. Jack explained some of the steps being taken to keep those conversations healthy and measures being taken to tackle the menace of fake news," Gandhi tweeted.

The micro-blogging platform, that has 336 million users globally, is working hard to increase the collective health, openness and civility of dialogue on its platform.

Dorsey, who arrived in India on his maiden visit last week, also met the Dalai Lama over the weekend, calling him an "amazing teacher".

"Thank you for not actually pulling out my nose ring, despite a lot of painful effort," he tweeted after meeting the Dalai Lama.

Dorsey was also expected to meet Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the wake of the growing criticism over Twitter's role in the spread of misinformation and fake news as India faces Assembly polls in five states ahead of the general elections next year. Dorsey’s visit comes during a time when Twitter came under fire for not doing enough about much about online trolls and attempts end the spread of fake news.

The Prime Minister’s Office received inputs from several ministries about how Twitter can collaborate with the central government. The social media site is currently working with the government to promote some of it initiatives.

Some ministries, such as the Ministry of External Affairs, use the ‘Twitter Seva’ facility for citizens to register their grievances. Reports have emerged stating that Twitter has had a declining revenue in India.

In a recent move, it suspended Lok Sabha TV anchor Jagrati Shukla’s account after she advocated the use of real bullets on Kashmiri civilians instead of pellets. However Twitter recieved flak for not taking action before owing to the fact that she is a “repeat offender” on the site.

Twitter has started a sanitising move to remove accounts that are inactive and other fake accounts. This led to a drop in the number of followers for PM Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Reports also state that Twitter is working towards having an encrypted messaging feature to safeguard communication.

A BBC research has also revealed that fake news is fast spreading in India owing to a "rising tide of nationalism" where right-wing networks are much more organised than on the left, when it comes to pushing "nationalistic fake stories" further.

The research found that in India, "facts were less important to some than the emotional desire to bolster national identity".

"There was also an overlap of fake news sources on Twitter and support networks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," the findings showed.