A section of the media claimed that BJP leader and former union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has removed ‘BJP’ from his Twitter account and written ‘public servant’ and ‘cricket enthusiast’. Some of the media outlets which published the news are – Times Now, Business Today, Deccan Herald, Saamana, Amar Ujala, News Nation and Prabhat Khabar.
Fact-check
The aforementioned media organizations used a screenshot of Jyotiraditya Scindia’s Twitter bio in their reports. Without stating what was written earlier in the bio, the reports claimed that he removed ‘BJP’. However, Jyotiraditya Scindia had never written ‘BJP’ in his Twitter bio. He joined the BJP in March 2020, but the Twitter bio shown by media outlets is the same since at least January 2020.
The screenshot above has been taken from the website Wayback Machine where users can save links as archives. Apart from this, the website takes automatic screenshots at different times. In the case of Jyotiraditya Scindia, when we searched his Twitter profile, it was revealed that a total of 54 screenshots have been taken between August 21, 2015 and May 17, 2020. These screenshots are of the home page of his Twitter account where his bio clearly reads “public servant, cricket enthusiast”. The search Alt News performed for retrieving archives of Scindia’s Twitter homepage can be viewed below.
Furthermore, we also found many screenshots after January where the same bio is visible. Some examples are attached below. The first screenshot was taken before he joined BJP in March 2020. The only alteration is his display picture. He can be seen sporting a scarf of the Indian National Congress in the picture before March 2020 and BJP’s scarf after he joined the party.
Therefore, Jyotiraditya Scindia has not made any changes to his Twitter bio recently. But a section of the media reported that he has removed BJP from his bio. Deccan Herald later updated its report and turned it into a fact-check without clarifying that the outlet had also shared the false news.
Following the misreports, Scindia tweeted, “Sadly, false news travels faster than the truth.” He also retweeted a tweet which says that social media claims are completely baseless.
Sadly, false news travels faster than the truth.
— Jyotiraditya M. Scindia (@JM_Scindia) June 6, 2020