On Friday, a Facebook video posted by Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-corruption organisation, which claimed to expose the multi-crore coal scam in Tamil Nadu General and Distribution Corporation during 2012-16
The ruling AIADMK has landed itself in a new controversy over charges of social media gagging, as it is reported to have engaged a private firm to remove memes and videos criticising the government and its leaders.
On Friday, a Facebook video posted by Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-corruption organisation, which claimed to expose the multi-crore coal scam in Tamil Nadu General and Distribution Corporation during 2012-16 was removed by claiming it to be a “copyright violation” at the instance of a private firm. Another video of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s meeting with a large number of empty chairs that was posted by Savukku Shankar, a Chennai-based whistleblower, was also removed on Thursday.
“I had posted a Facebook video explaining the coal scam. Today, I got a mail saying the video was removed based on a notice from a third party that the content infringes their copyright. The mail mentioned the rights owner as “MGR Ilangair Ani (MGR Youth Wing)” and it has given an email: admin@copyrightmedia.in. It is a video made by us. How can it be a copyright violation? It is nothing but suppression of freedom by the AIADMK,” said Jayaram Venkatesan of Arappor Iyakkam.
Venkatesan said that an official of the Copyrightmedia company told him that they complained to Facebook based on an AIADMK IT wing request. “It seems to have been happening for sometime. No one complained when memes were removed,” he added.
Meanwhile, Shankar tweeted, “Why would a ruling party, spend money to your firm to muzzle criticism in social media is the moot question.” He wrote that former chief ministers J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi would file a case against journalist, but never engaged a private firm to pull down online content against them.
However, AIADMK IT wing secretary G Ramachandran denied any role of his wing in the episode. “We did not engage anyone to remove any contents from the social media,” he said, claiming that he was not even aware of the alleged coal scam expose.
Interestingly, when contacted, Copyrightmedia said that the Arappor Iyakkam video was removed by mistake and expressed regret. “MGR Youth are loyalists of MG Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa,” said S Sudharsan, CEO.
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