A bizarre incident has unfolded in Indian politics where a single tweet by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi forced a Brazilian photographer thousands of miles away to vanish from the internet. Following the use of a photograph to allege election fraud in the Haryana elections, the photographer felt his online safety was compromised and was compelled to delete his Instagram account.
The commotion began when Rahul Gandhi shared a picture—of a woman wearing a blue denim jacket—while alleging fraud in last year’s elections. The image was originally available for free download on stock photography websites like Unsplash and Pexels and was taken by Matheus Ferreira, a photographer based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, back in 2017.
Ferreira had shared the photo with the caption “Woman in a Blue Denim Jacket,” and it has since been downloaded over 400,000 times from these platforms.
However, when Gandhi used it in the context of alleged electoral malpractice, social media users mistakenly assumed that Matheus Ferreira was the name of the woman visible in the photograph. As a result of this misunderstanding, a large number of users began searching for and targeting the photographer, Matheus Ferreira, on Instagram, creating chaos in his digital life.
Ferreira gained notoriety overnight, but he stated that the situation became critical when several users attempted to hack his Instagram account. To ensure his personal and digital safety, the photographer was eventually forced to delete his account. This incident serves as a striking example of how cross-border political statements and misinformation can impact the lives of ordinary citizens.
