The government may have withdrawn its controversial Social Media Communications Hub, but an NDTV report has revealed that this was actually its seventh attempt to closely monitor its citizens' social media. Six other tenders were issued since 2014 by different parts of the government, all of them seeking to keep an eye on what users were posting on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Those tenders are (below links are PDFs): TENDER NOTICE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING SERVICES (TWITTER) FOR THE EXTERNAL PUBLICITY AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY DIVISION, MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Request for Proposal For Selection of Social Media Agency, UIDAI Request for Proposals invited for selection of agency at Social Media Communication Hub for services related to 24 x 7 function, operation and maintenance for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India and Supply, installation, testing of software Request for Proposals invited for selection of agency at Social Media Communication Hub for Monitoring services related to 24 x 7 function, operation and maintenance for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India and Supply, installation, testing of software. Invitation for Expression of Interest for empanelment of agency for Monitoring and Response Management Services related to 24 x 7 function, operation and maintenance of Social Media Communication Hub of different Ministries/Govt. Organizations National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) Request for Proposal for Selection of Social Media Agency Of special note are the BECIL tenders — BECIL is the I&B Ministry subsidiary that issued the tender on…
