New Delhi: More than a week after Sanjay Hegde found his Twitter account suspended over a 2017 tweet, the senior Supreme Court advocate heard back from Twitter Tuesday on his appeal — and he isn’t pleased with the decision. The lawyer has decided to take the social media platform to court.
On Tuesday, at 3 am, Hegde received a mail from Twitter confirming that his account would not be restored.
“Your account has been suspended and will not be restored because it was found to be violating Twitter’s Terms of Service (https://twitter.com/tos), specifically the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules) against using hateful or sensitive content in your profile,” the email read.
Hegde told ThePrint that he will now be taking Twitter to court — and is even considering moving international courts.
“I am left with no option but to migrate to an alternate platform like Mastodon and to take Twitter and others to court on this. I am examining all options including courts outside India,” Hegde told ThePrint.
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Twitter’s conflict with Hegde
Hegde’s account was suspended twice last week, once on Saturday, 26 October over his cover image of a German national, August Landmesser, refusing to enact the Nazi salute before Hitler.
Later, the account was restored, only to be suspended again Monday, 27 October over a 2017 tweet — Hegde had quote-tweeted Kavita Krishnan, whose post shared a poem by Gorakh Pandey, ‘Usko Phaansi Do’ along with its English translation, ‘Hang Him’. This is what caught Twitter’s algorithm — after mass reporting of Hegde’s tweet.
Subsequently, Hegde had received a message from Twitter asking him to delete the tweet to have his account restored. But Hegde decided to appeal against the suspension, instead of obliging and deleting the tweet.
Calling the offer by Twitter a ‘catch-22 situation’, Hegde had earlier told ThePrint that he refuses to delete his tweet, and would wait for his appeal to be decided, instead. “I can get into Twitter any time I want if I delete the tweet, but I will not delete the tweet. I want my appeal to be decided,” he had said.
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