News: On Tuesday night, White House decided to unfollow the only world leader that it had been following on micro-blogging platform Twitter – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Later the White House clarified the reasons behind the move.
Here are five components of the story
- The White House currently follows just 13 accounts and has 22 million followers along with that of President Donald Trump and his official Twitter handle, the First Lady, the Vice President, and the Second Lady among others.
- Besides the Indian prime minister, the White House also followed the official Twitter handles of the president of India, the Indian Prime Minister’s Office and the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C. However, all these accounts have now been unfollowed by the White House.
- There were speculations that this comes in the contour of retaliatory warnings by President Donald Trump after New Delhi decided to put a ban on the export of Hydroxychloroquine.
- However, later on, Wednesday, The White House explained that its Twitter handle typically ‘follows’ the accounts of officials from host countries for a brief period during a presidential trip to retweet their messages in support of the visit.
- ‘Unfollowing’ the Twitter accounts of President Kovind and PM Modi drew reactions on social media in India. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he was “dismayed” at the development.
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