Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s Facebook account was suspended for 16 hours over alleged content on “adult sexual exploitation and violence” before being restored on Saturday.
“I got information after a while that my account has been blocked, suspended. And I came to know from you (media) and then from them (Facebook) that there was something objectionable in my post. They said that there were complaints of adult sexual exploitation and violence (in the post),” he said.
“When I received the complete report, which included my posts, I found I had mentioned an incident which had taken place in Ballia. It was a post about a true incident with a woman. This can be confirmed from the Ballia MP,” he said, motioning towards SP MP Sanatan Pandey.
The Facebook account is regularly used by the SP chief to share his views, highlight the government’s “shortcomings”, and connect with supporters.
Akhilesh said that he had, in his post, highlighted how journalists were being browbeaten in Uttar Pradesh.
“I had written about the murder of a journalist, mounting pressure on a journalist, fixing a monthly (bribe) for a journalist, filing FIR against journalists, stripping journalists and beating them... every trick was applied to intimidate the media... What is wrong with this message?” the former chief minister asked.
“We, the Samajwadis have realised that our success will be in direct proportion to our struggle on the ground. So, we will keep awakening the people,” he said, hinting at the use of social media as an electoral tool to highlight public issues.
On Saturday morning, Akhilesh took to his account, which has over 8 million followers, and shared a quote by Jayaprakash Narayan to commemorate the socialist leader’s birth anniversary. “By ‘Sampoorn Kraanti’ (complete revolution), I mean seeing the most oppressed person in society at the pinnacle of power,” the post read.
Many SP leaders had blamed the BJP government for blocking Akhilesh’s account and dubbed it a “sign of undeclared emergency in the country”.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister of information and broadcasting, had said the government had nothing to do with this. “The government didn’t play any role in it. It was done by Facebook in reaction to a derogatory post, which was against their policy,” he
had said.