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On Social Media Day, Congress appeals to PM Modi to unfollow those who abuse women online

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The video changes the lyrics of The Beatles’ iconic song ‘Let it be’, and urges Modi to be ‘a real PM’ by unfollowing online trolls.

New Delhi: The Congress party has made an unusual appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take a stand against viscous online trolling – often by his own supporters – on the occasion of Social Media Day.

The party released a musical video on social media, making “a collective plea” to the PM to unfollow Twitter handles of those who routinely subject those with opposing political ideologies, especially women, with abuse and threat.

The video, released Saturday, changes the lyrics of the English rock band The Beatles’ iconic song “Let it be”, and urges Modi to be “a real PM” by unfollowing online trolls, many of whom, claim to be “blessed” to be followed by him.

The video comes at a time when Twitter has announced measures to tighten the noose around bots and trolls by making it mandatory for suspicious accounts to validate their numbers to ascertain and authenticate their identities.

In the video, a bunch of young women sing their own rendition of the classic song with the following lyrics: “When I find myself logged onto Facebook, sanghi trolls come to me, spewing words of venom, trolling me…”

While the Right-wing trolls are seen as guilty of attacking women journalists, who are ideologically and politically opposed to the BJP, they have not spared union minister Sushma Swaraj as well.

The external affairs minister was the target of a vile online attack in the wake of the transfer of a passport officer in Lucknow last week after an inter-faith couple tweeted at Swaraj alleging that he had asked the Muslim husband married to a Hindu to convert to Hinduism.

Swaraj, who was accused by the Right-wing trolls of “minority appeasement,” was attacked even for her kidney transplant and described as “half dead” by many.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times, 41 BJP parliamentarians were following at least one of the accounts that tweeted out a vile message which Swaraj had liked on Twitter to showcase the trolling she had faced.

Last month, UN human rights experts had issued a release arguing that they were “highly concerned” that journalist Rana Ayyub’s life was at serious risk.

Ayyub, who has never been popular among BJP supporters, faced a particularly vitriolic online attack after she was falsely quoted in a statement supporting child rapists and saying that Muslims were not safe in India.

The threats being faced by Ayyub were extremely troubling given the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh following similar death threats last year, they had observed.

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