New Delhi: Twitter temporarily blocked IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s account Friday for an alleged violation of the US Copyright Act, a move that the minister slammed as being arbitrary and gross violation of IT rules.
Hitting out at the US-based social media company, Prasad, in a series of posts on the Indian social media platform Koo, said Twitter’s action is in gross violation of IT rules as the platform had failed to give prior notice before denying access to his account.
The account was subsequently unblocked after a warning.
In an email response to ThePrint’s query, a Twitter spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the Honourable Minister’s account access was temporarily restricted due to a DMCA notice only and the referenced Tweet has been withheld. Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives.”
The blocking of the IT Minister’s Twitter account comes at a time when the US digital giant has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules.
The government has slammed Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country’s new IT rules, which has led to the microblogging platform losing its intermediary status in India and becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.
‘Twitter should give intimation, context for action’
Confronting Twitter, Prasad said it was apparent that his statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of the microblogging platform, particularly sharing clips of interviews to TV channels and the powerful impact had “clearly ruffled its feathers”.
“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,” Prasad said on Koo.
In a statement released to the media, Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO & co-founder at Koo said, “Giving a user complete context of any claimed violation and an intimation of the exact violation is important. The user should also be able to contest or accept the claimed violation. A direct action of suspension without the above makes it seem like a social media platform is taking the final judgement call and is not being an intermediary.”
Meanwhile, news agency ANI reported that Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s Twitter account had also been temporarily blocked.
Tharoor, who is also the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, said he would seek an explanation from Twitter India for the procedures they follow and the blocking of his and Ravi Shankar Prasad’s account.
(This report has been updated with inputs from ThePrint and ANI.)
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