Indian farmers’ protest against the government’s implementation of the new agricultural bill has recently burned on social media.
Rihanna, a famous American singer with more than 100 million followers on Twitter, recently retweeted a report in the U.S. media that the Indian government used “out of the Internet” to deal with farmers’ protests, with the caption, “Why don’t we discuss this?” She also added the hashtag of “farmer protests” and called on the public to pay attention to Indian farmers’ protests.
Although the tweet is short, it caused a great uproar, and a large number of Indian netizens flooded into the comment area, warning them not to interfere in India’s internal affairs.
Later, Greta Thunberg, Sweden’s “environmental girl”, retweeted the same story, saying “we stand with India protesting against farmers”. U.S. Vice President Harris’s niece Mina also tweeted in support of farmers’ protests.
In response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India issued a statement on the 3rd saying that the Indian Parliament has fully debated, discussed and passed the agricultural bill, and those inflammatory social media content and comments are sensational, especially the statements made by some celebrities, are neither accurate nor responsible.
The BBC reported that Rihanna’s tweet “irritated the Indian government”.
Sachin Tendukar, a famous Indian cricketer and former captain of the national team, also played “patriot cards” on Twitter to support the government’s position. India Today said that Tendukhar said, “India’s sovereignty cannot be undermined.
External forces can act as bystanders, but not participants. Only India knows India and can make decisions for India.
Indian national cricket coach Shastri also said that farmers’ protests are India’s “internal affairs” and “will definitely be resolved through dialogue”.
In addition, Bollywood stars such as Akshay Kumar have also stepped forward against Rihanna’s tweets.
Indian farmers’ protests lasted for many days. In order to prevent the situation from escalating, the Modi government, in addition to “unplugging the network”, pressured the Twitter platform to block sensitive content.
Twitter once carried out the Indian government’s order, but soon unblocked the account because of “freedom of speech”.
According to the Wall Street Journal on the 3rd, the Indian government threatened Twitter that it would be “punished” if it did not comply with the “lockdown” requirement.
