Twitter on Monday suspended several accounts of high-profile celebrities and organisations, including actor and Savdhaan India’s narrator Sushant Singh for reportedly spreading misinformation during the farmers' protests. The actor’s Twitter handle, @sushant_says has been withheld in response to legal demands, read the disclaimer on the account. This happened at the behest of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for spreading misinformation during the farmers' protests.
Twitter suspended multiple accounts of sociopolitical activists,politicians, farmer leaders, writers, activists and journalists, and others who are linked to the ongoing farmer’s protest. The IT ministry and law enforcement agencies had last week ordered Twitter to block these tweets and accounts under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.
A Twitter spokesperson said that 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," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.
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)," the company informed.
Reacting to the same Twitterati called out the tech-giant.
Former Bigg Boss contestant Tehnseen Poonawalla slammed Twitter India for taking such step. “Well someone I know as a strong voice against the atrocities of the Present government, @sushant_says, his account has been blocked by @TwitterIndia. @sushant_says was leading the fight against abusive, Twitter handles that spew hate & threaten women. Stunned @_sayema.”
Meanwhile, Twitter last week said it suspended more than 300 accounts engaged in spam and platform manipulation as the farmers' tractor rally went violent in the national capital on the 72nd Republic Day.
(With IANS Inputs)
