Twitter’s actions indicate that they are not a harbinger of free speech, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today that he had to wait an hour to log into his Twitter account because he was denied access to his username. Prasad shared the screenshot saying his account was locked by Twitter on the grounds that there had been a violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Notably, the IT minister’s assertion comes amid continuing disagreements between the Indian government and the microblogging site over new IT rules, which Twitter has yet to fully comply with.
Prasad also said that no matter what a platform does, “they will have to fully comply with the new IT rules and there will be no compromise on that”.
“Friends! Something very special happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the grounds that there had been a violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and subsequently allowed me to access the account ” , Prasad tweeted after gaining access.
It is obvious that my statements denouncing the arbitrariness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, especially the sharing of clips from my interviews on TV channels and its powerful impact, clearly ruffled his feathers.
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) 25 juin 2021
Prasad said Twitter’s actions were in flagrant violation of Rule 4 (8) of the 2021 Information Technology Rules (Intermediate Guidelines and Code of Ethics for Digital Media), where the company has failed him. provided notice before denying him access to his account. The IT minister, who has consistently shared video clips of his Twitter interviews on Twitter over the past week, said his statements denouncing the arbitrariness and arbitrary actions of Twitter had “clearly ruffled him”.
“In addition, it is now clear why Twitter refuses to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines, because if Twitter complies with them, it would not be able to arbitrarily deny access to the account of an individual who does not match. on his agenda. In addition, in recent years, no television channel or presenter has filed a complaint for copyright infringement concerning these excerpts from my interviews shared on social networks, ”said the Minister.
Prasad said Twitter’s action shows it is not a “harbinger of free speech”. Twitter actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of the free speech they claim to be, but that they are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you don’t follow the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform. ,” he said.
Prasad, who also has a handle on the Koo app, which is said to be the Indian version of Twitter, also posted the statements on Koo. Twitter has already lost social intermediary status in India after failing to comply with new information technology rules that came into effect on May 26.
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