India's order to block accounts inconsistent with local law, says Twitter
It believes the government's orders are not consistent with Indian law, Twitter added.
FollowNew Delhi: Twitter Inc said it has restricted access to some of the accounts that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government had asked it to block, but the accounts were still available outside India.
It believes the government's orders are not consistent with Indian law, Twitter added.
Multiple accounts on the microblogging website, including those of Caravan magazine and Kisan Ekta Morcha were withheld based on the request of the Ministry of Home Affairs and law enforcement agencies to prevent any escalation of law and order situation during the farmers’ agitation.
“Many countries have laws that may apply to Tweets and/or Twitter account content. In our continuing effort to make our services available to people everywhere, if we receive a properly scoped request from an authorised entity, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time. Transparency is vital to protecting freedom of expression, so we have a notice policy for withheld content. Upon receipt of requests to withhold content, we will promptly notify the affected account holders (unless we are prohibited from doing so e.g. if we receive a court order under seal). More information can be found here,” a Twitter spokesperson had said in a statement.
The move came amid police action against several journalists after reports on the farmers’ Republic Day tractor rally. Several states have registered cases against journalists who reported that a protestor who died during the rally was allegedly shot by the police.
Meanwhile, the Centre had on February 3 sent a notice to Twitter for reinstating accounts and Tweets supporting the farmers’ protest despite a directive to block them by the Information Technology ministry.
The government has cited the unblocking of over 250 accounts and posts that talked about “farmer genocide” and issued a notice to Twitter saying the social media company was violating the Information Technology Act’s Section 69 that provides for seven-year imprisonment.
