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Ravi Shankar Prasad locked out of his Twitter account for an hour

Though the minister's Twitter account was visible for public viewing, Twitter did not permit anyone authorised to access this account to log in or make any post.

Ravi Shankar Prasad locked out of his Twitter account for an hour-VPN
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New Delhi, First Published Jun 25, 2021, 3:48 PM IST

Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's Twitter account was blacked out for over an hour.

According to media reports, the 'action' was taken under the Copyright Act of America. 

Ravi Shankar Prasad locked out of his Twitter account for an hour-VPN

Though the minister's Twitter account was visible for public viewing, Twitter did not permit anyone authorised to access this account to log in or make any post, reports said.

The error message on the minister's Twitter feed said that his account had been locked because Twitter received a compliant Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice for content posted to his account.

After Twitter warned the information technology minister that additional notices of such nature may result in his account being locked again and potentially suspended, the account was unlocked.

Ravi Shankar Prasad locked out of his Twitter account for an hour-VPN

Twitter suggested that he should not post additional material in violation of its copyright from his account.  

'My statements have clearly ruffled Twitter's feathers'

The Union Minister too to Koo to confirm the Twitter lockout

He said, "Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account."

"Twitter's actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account."

"It is apparent that my statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly sharing the clips of my interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers."

"Further, it is now apparent as to why Twitter is refusing to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines because if Twitter does comply, it would be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individual’s account which does not suit their agenda."

"Furthermore, in the past several years, no television channel or any anchor has made any complaints about copyright infringements with regard to these news clips of my interviews shared on social media."

"Twitter's actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not toe the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform."

"No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that."

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