Twitter has blocked several accounts, which were tweeting about farmers protest.
Accounts of Kisan Ekta Morcha, The Caravan India, Manik Goyal, Tractor2twitr and jatt_junction are among those blocked by Twitter.
The development comes following a legal notice served by the Centre to the Twitter.
Officials of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said that Twitter has been asked to block over 250 accounts or tweets that were tweeting using a specific hashtag.
“The move has been initiated on the request of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and law enforcement agencies to prevent deterioration of law and order situation due to the farmer agitation,” informed the Centre.
Following accounts have been blocked in India: @imMAK02s, @thecaravanindia, @Kisanektamorcha, @manavijyan, @derasachasauda, @Bkuektaugrahan, @tractor2twitr, @aartic02, @sushant_says, @salimdotcomrade, @sanjukta, @HansrajMeena, @EpicRoflDon, @shashidigital.
Notably, @shashidigital belongs to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Prasar Bharati – Shashi Shekhar.
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Meanwhile, netizens lodged their protest against the move of withholding of accounts by the social media giant.
Meanwhile, Twitter said that it acted upon a requested issued by an authority.
“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,” Twitter said.
It added, “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).”
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