Alt News impact: Twitter suspends multiple imposter accounts in Pushpendra Kulshrestha's name - Alt News
Priyanka Jha
11th October 2021 / 6:43 pm / Last updated: 11th October 2021
A large portion of the disinformation on Indian Twitter came from fake and imposter accounts created in the name of journalist Pushpendra Kulshrestha. Some of these accounts had millions of followers. In this article, Alt News has jotted down eight of the most prominent accounts created in Kulshrestha’s name. Two of these accounts were suspended during the course of this article and the remaining six were suspended after this author brought them to Twitter’s notice and reported each of them.
It is noteworthy that none of these accounts clarified that they were parody accounts. A handle using an individual’s name without specifying in the account name or bio that it is a parody account is in violation of Twitter’s rules and policies.
According to Kulshrestha’s verified Facebook profile, his official Twitter handle is @Pushpendraamu and he has over 1 lakh followers.
But some of the accounts impersonating him used to enjoy higher follower counts than the journalist himself. Below is a list of all the handles Alt News reported to Twitter.
1. Followers of the @ThePushpendra_/ handle included verified handles belonging to journalists and politicians alike, even though Kulshrestha himself tweeted on May 31 that the handle is fake.
One more Fake account pic.twitter.com/pGORMgXnln
— Pushpendra Kulshrestha (@Pushpendraamu) May 31, 2021
Every so often, the account would make communal and misleading posts. Below are nine instances when the account was found sharing misinformation.
Screenshots of all these false claims made by the handle @ThePushpendra_/ are below.
2. @PuspendraTweet was also followed by many senior politicians including Sarojini Agarwal, Manish Singh, Gajendra Chauhan, Surendra Poonia, Arun Yadav, etc. Pushpendra Kulshrestha had clarified in a March tweet that this handle was fake.
Another fake account pic.twitter.com/OfBQ7IRYqw
— Pushpendra Kulshrestha (@Pushpendraamu) March 6, 2021
The username of this handle used to be ‘@RanjanGogoii’ and was later changed to ‘@PuspendraTweet’. A screenshot of a tweet posted by the handle @RanjanGogoii went viral recently.
Several people were circulating it as a tweet posted by former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. You can read our fact-check investigation of this post here.
Apart from this, @PuspendraTweet claimed that “Mamata Banerjee imposed a ban on 125 RSS schools in Bengal” following the May legislative elections held in the state.
West Bengal government had closed these schools in 2018 claiming they were flouting norms. You can find our detailed report on the incident here.
3. REAL___HINDUVT with 1,00,000 followers (archived link) – This handle still exists since it has not used Pushpendra Kulshrestha’s name, though the display picture does feature him.
Alt News has caught REAL___HINDUVT circulating misinformation twice.
Apart from these, the remaining handles earlier highlighted in the article used to regularly share communal posts. Kulshrestha had posted several tweets warning his followers about fake accounts impersonating him. In February 2020, he tweeted that people were sharing misleading posts in his name. ThePrint had cited a parody handle of the journalist as a genuine tweet in a fact-check article recently. Twitter has suspended six of the most popular accounts after Alt News sent an email to the social media giant and reported each of the handles.
She specializes in information verification, examining mis/disinformation, social media monitoring and platform accountability. Her aim is to make the internet a safer place and enable people to become informed social media users. She has been a part of Alt News since 2018.
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