High-Profile Accounts Restricted By Twitter In India

We all are hearing about the Twitter India caravan Singh TechCrunch these days. Many accounts in India were restored by Twitter on Monday evening. All these accounts were restricted 12 hours before. The company did not release any statement for the same, but the tweet by Pratik Sinha, who is the co-founder of fact-checking organization at Alt News, summarizes the event that occurred today.

On Monday, access to dozens of accounts was blocked in India by Twitter, some of those accounts belonged to high-profile people, to obey a legal demand, prompting anger and confusion among individuals who are looking forward to an explanation for this sudden action.

Among the accounts whose accounts have been restricted in India include political commutator Sanjukta Basu, chief executive of Prasar Bharti, Caravan (a news outlet that performs investigative journalism), actor Sushant Singh and actor Sushant Singh. Accounts of two politicians with AAP – Preeti Sharma Menon and Jarnail Singh were also withheld.

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Founder of Twitter

Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Noah Glass together created Twitter in 2006 of March and it was launched for the use of the public in July.

Best hashtags for Twitter India

#IncarnationMonth, #Halloween, #Sai Mastana Ji, #AngelDust, #instagramdown, #NoNutNovember,#BJPCheatsGujarat, #Sushant Spiritual quest, and #Prithvi Shaw are some of the best hashtags in India for Twitter.

Caravan Singh Techcrunch Twitter accounts

Caravan( a news outlet), Sanjukta Basu(political commentator), Sushant Singh (actor), Hansraj Meena (activist), and Shashi Shekhar Vempati(chief executive of Prasar Bharti are among the ones whose accounts were withheld. Accounts of two politicians were also among those.

Caravan Singh Techcrunch Twitter moments

It is not clear who all have trailed legal action that prompted Twitter to withhold so many accounts in India. These accounts can be accessed by users outside India. In the case of Sanjukta Basu (a political commentator), Twitter told him that authorities in India had pursued legal demands against certain accounts that included his and it was in talks with the authorities about the same.

Earlier today, journalist Bhuvan Bagga reported that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India ordered Twitter to block a few tweets and accounts that were making use of a hashtag to make something that was not true, which were intimidating and provoking during the weekend. He also said, “provocation to genocide is a serious threat to the public and so the MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology directed for blocking of those accounts and Tweets”.

Twitter had earlier restricted many accounts, some with links to protests by farmers on agricultural reforms when requested by New Delhi last week. But then the decision was reversed within a few hours citing the freedom of speech by the users. Twitter also said that it was withholding many of the accounts, in some instances, permanently, and preventing some terms from polluting in the section of Trends.

According to the company, Twitter handles are just being blocked within India and will remain accessible outside the country. Indian government orders are not consistent with local laws according to the company. It also stated that the accounts of journalists, politicians, activists, and media entities were not taken down. Doing this would violate their basic right to free expression according to the law of the country.

Over the last ten days, Twitter has been presented with many individual orders to block by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of the Indian government, according to various media reports and blog posts.

“Two were emergency blocking orders out of all these accounts that were complied with temporarily but restored access to the content subsequently in such a manner that was consistent with the laws of the country. After they talked about this to MEITY, they were given a non-compliance notice”, said the headquarters firm at San Fransisco.

Many farmers were protesting the new laws from the government of New Delhi in India for more than two months. Twitter reaches more than 75 million users with the help of its app in India and has turned out to be the single-most online forum for those who are seeking to voice their minds and thoughts on this particular subject.

Popular singer Rihanna, who has millions of followers on Twitter compared to any popular Indian politician or actor, tweeted a news story on CNN last week about the protests and asked everyone “why anyone is not talking about it?”. The government of India says that the new laws are in favor of farmers and they will help the farmers and consumers by creating a streamlined agricultural supply chain. Internet services were also shut down by the government of New Delhi near the area of protests last month.

There were also many tweets by the users with the hashtag #modiplanningfarmersgenocide that were targeted at the agricultural reforms of New Delhi. Many hashtags and accounts violated the rules of Twitter according to the company, particularly instigating abuse, harm, threats, and violence that could trigger physical harm to anyone.

A spokesperson from Twitter told TechCrunch that these hashtags were just for the sake of supporting farmers or their protests haven’t been affected. Earlier this month, in one of its many orders to Twitter, India had shown its concerns that some of its users were sharing inappropriate and intimidating statements and instigative messages. At the time of its compliance with the orders, Twitter had restricted several handles of people who were high-profile users, such as Caravan, actor Sushant Singh, Prasar Bharati’s chief executive Shashi Shekhar Vempati, political commentator Sanjukta Basu and activist Hansraj Meena and couple of politicians as well.

After these blocks were lifted by Twitter, New Delhi summoned rigorous warnings to Twitter and its executives, which allows “punishment with imprisonment for a certain time which may stretch up to seven long years and also be liable to fines”. The government of India also said that Twitter cannot in any case “assume the role of a court and justify non-compliance”.