Enraged Dalit activists allege 'blue tick discrimination' by Twitter

Fighting for social liberty and equality, Dalit, OBC and tribal activists and supporters have launched an online protest against social media giant Twitter. While the initial campaign launched on Saturday, #cancelallBlueTicksinIndia is currently the top global trend on Twitter on Wednesday. Activists have alleged that Twitter is condoning caste discrimination and hierarchy on its social media platform and have demanded equality in blue ticks- all or none.

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What triggered the protest?

Twitter reportedly restricted academician Prof. Dilip Mandal's Twitter activity on Friday alleging 'privacy violation'. Mandal is a known champion of various social causes online. The academician has alleged that Twitter, citing privacy violation, had restricted his activity in March after he had tweeted about a booklet titled Bahujan Agenda with the permission of the author, as per reports.

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Online protest supporting Mandal

Soon Mandal's online supporters took to Twitter demanding Mandal's accounts' restoration trending #restoreDilipMandal. Later Twitter reportedly restored his account and verified his account on Saturday.  But this did stop the online protest against discrimination.

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Social activists clash with Twitter's alleged caste discrimination

Since then activists have been tweeting social causes on Twitter with various hashtags like #TwitterHatesSCSTOBCMuslims, #JaiBheemJaiMandalJaiBirsa, #JaiBhimTwitter, #CasteistTwitter which have been the top trend since then. Activists have also been sharing famous quotes and messages of renown social leaders like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Mandal Commission's B.P. Mandal and tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda. These trends have also been propagated by Prof. Mandal himself, who has been tweeting about the campaign since Saturday.

Twitterati has also been demanding the removal of Manish Maheshwari - Managing director of Twitter India with #SackManishMaheshwari. In retaliation, some other Twitter supporters started the trend #TwitterParRajHinduKa on Tuesday. But currently, #cancelallBlueTicksinIndia is the top Twitter trend, calling out Twitter's discrimination in awarding blue ticks.

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Here are some tweets on #cancelallBlueTicksinIndia: