Ravi Shankar claims Twitter blocked access to his account
NEW DELHI: Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday said Twitter denied him access to his account for almost an hour citing alleged copyright infringement, amid growing tension between the social media company and the Union government over compliance with the new IT rules.
Prasad linked the action to his statements calling out Twitter’s “high-handedness and arbitrary actions”. He called the denial a gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. He said Twitter did not provide him any prior notice before denying him access.
“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 (DMCA) of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account,” Prasad wrote on Koo, India’s alternative to Twitter.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor replied to Prasad’s post, saying the same thing happened to him as well. He, however, said he “won’t blame Twitter for this action or attribute the motives to them that Ravi Shankar Prasad does”.
It is apparent that my statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, have clearly ruffled its feathers
NEW DELHI: Union electronics and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday said Twitter denied him access to his account for almost an hour citing alleged copyright infringement. He linked the action to his statements calling out Twitter’s “high-handedness and arbitrary actions”.
Prasad called the denial a gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. He said Twitter did not provide him any prior notice before denying him access.
“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 wrote on Koo, India’s alternative to Twitter. “It is apparent that my statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly sharing the clips of my interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers.”
HT reached out to Twitter for comments but did not receive a response immediately.
Twitter has been at loggerheads with the government over the new controversial social media and intermediary guidelines. The government has pulled up the company for failing to comply with the guidelines. It has said the non-compliance could result in Twitter’s loss of safe harbour protection under the Information Technology Act. Twitter has raised concerns about the safety of its employees in India and flagged police intimidation.
The firm and the government have also faced off over orders to block access to content and marking of posts by BJP leaders as manipulated media.
Prasad slammed Twitter saying that its actions showed that it was not the “harbinger of free speech that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not tow the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform”. He said no matter what any platform does, it will have to abide by the new rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that.