Fact Check: Popular ‘fact-checking’ Twitter account followed by verified handles regularly posts fake news

The popularity of political discourse on twitter knows no bounds anymore. Accounts are getting extremely creative in the way that they present and post news so that it becomes impossible for a common man to tell what is real and what is not. Many popular so-called ‘news media’ accounts have resorted to merely bashing the opposition and spreading fake news in order to fuel their readers’ minds with hate.

@PoliticalKida is a classic example of these up-and-coming accounts. Political Kida has over 120,000 followers on Twitter and is followed by many verified IDs like that of Sambit Patra, Rahul Roushan and Nupur Sharma of OpIndia and countless others. Political Kida produces videos and posts that usually target the Opposition, journalists and students with doctored footages and engaging in whataboutery. Political Kida’s founder Ankur Singh, himself boasting over 100,000 followers has been on panels organised by OpIndia in the past.

Here is an example of the fake news circulated on the page:

On July 30,2021, the account posted a video ‘exposing’ the hypocrisy of the Indian National Congress who supported the farmer protest and promised to waive off loans in Rajasthan but has failed to do so.

Fact-Check:

This claim is supported with NO facts or valid arguments whatsoever but only relies on the video production quality. The video has over 10,000 views and 1000 likes.

Upon looking into the claims, we found that not only does this ‘opinion’ have no basis but also, according to various credible media sources, INC government in Rajasthan has waived off over 14,000 crores worth in farmer loans since it came into power.

Political Kida’s claim is therefore, false and misleading and displays this same pattern in almost all of its videos and tweets.