In the latest edition of Twitter files, independent journalist Matt Taibbi exposed that how in 2021, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL),which is funded by the US government, wanted to censor/block Twitter handles of Hindu Nationalists in particular associated with India’s ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).

On June 18, 2021, a DFRLab analyst Andy Carvin sent Twitter a spreadsheet with the names of about 40,000 accounts suspected of engaging in inauthentic behaviour in support of India’s ruling Bhartiya Janta Party and Hindu nationalism more broadly.

However, contrary to the DFLR report, the then twitter top executives refused to act on the flagged twitter accounts. Yoel Roth, former Twitter trust and safety chief replied, “ I spot checked a number of these accounts and virtually all appear to be real people”.

Pertinently, Roth has been on the epicentre of gutting the Twitter account of former US President Donald Trump and censoring the notorious Hunter Biden story.

Opindia had found that a minimum of 66 prominent and verified Indian Twitter handles had been despatched by Digital Forensic Research (DFR) Lab to the highest executives of Twitter for censorship/ block just for their Hindu nationalism and for having been linked with the ruling BJP.

Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, a think tank funded by the US State Department’s Global Engagement Centre (GEC) which was created during the final year of Obama administration is a State Department entity that works with the several U.S. Intelligence agencies to "counter foreign disinformation”. It is banned from operating in the US and recently had to cut ties with a George Soros- backed NGO that was using it’s funding to target conservative US news sites.

DFRLab has also been involved in spreading misinformation by publishing misleading articles about India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)and JawaharLal National University (JNU) violence.