17 December,2013 07:07 AM IST | | Hassan M Kamal
"With this incident, the whole purpose of writing something on Twitter has been defeated," said cartoonist Manjul after he claims his cartoons poking fun at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi were pulled down from the social networking site.
Manjul said that on Saturday, he had posted a cartoon of Law Minister Kapil Sibal fighting with a social activist over the Lokpal Bill. He claims that soon after, it was removed. On Sunday, he posted another one, this time poking fun at Rahul Gandhi's late support for the Lokpal Bill, and Congress' latest defeat at the hands of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, in the recently concluded Delhi elections.
"This time too, they pulled down the cartoon within minutes of my uploading it," he added. Manjul said that he had lost faith in Twitter as a means to express his views. "They have done it once, they will do it again. And what's worse, they don't even bother to reply to your questions," said an irate Manjul to MiD DAY over the phone.
He added, "Initially, I thought it was a technical error, but when the cartoons went missing for the second time, I was sure something was wrong. I used to think Twitter was a free space. I didn't post anything insulting and was well within the limits of decency."
Manjul said he was angrier at the fact that the authorities at Twitter had not even given him a reason for pulling down the cartoons. "I doubt if I can ever trust Twitter with my content again," he said. Soon after the cartoons went missing, many of Manjul's followers began to tweet about it. After several tweets to Twitter India, none of which were replied to, the cartoons reappeared on the site last evening around 7 pm.u00a0