Twitter blocks IT Minister's account citing violation of rules; unblocks later

Union IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday (June 25) took to Twitter to complain against Twitter for temporarily blocking his personal account.

The account was reinstated an hour later, but the move didn’t go down well with the minister who accused the micro blogging site of violating sections of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

“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 tweeted.

“Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4 (8) of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account,” he said.

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. pic.twitter.com/WspPmor9Su

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives copyright users the right to flag use of their content online without their consent.

Twitter has not yet clarified which post by Prasad compelled it to invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but Prasad said that certain clips of his interview with news channels posted on Twitter “and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers”.

“Furthermore, in the past several years, no television channel or any anchor has made any complaints about copyright infringements with regard to these news clips of my interviews shared on social media,” Prasad said.

“No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that,” the Law Minister said.

Twitter is the only major social media site yet to comply with India’s new digital media regulations, which came into effect on May 26. A few days back, the company said it had appointed an interim chief compliance officer and would later share updates with the government. The two officials were asked why a full-time officer had not been appointed till now.

Also read: Tharoor-led panel tells Twitter Indian laws are ‘supreme’

The government has locked horns with Twitter ever since the social media giant labelled tweets by BJP politicians as ‘manipulated media’.

The Uttar Pradesh police department also filed an FIR against Twitter for its alleged inaction against tweets regarding the assault of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad district on June 5. Twitter, along with several journalists and Congress leaders, were accused of provoking communal sentiments in the FIR.

The Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, listed out ethics and suggested a method to manage inappropriate content on social media and digital news platforms.

Under the new rules, social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook will have to reveal the origin of any post a court or government authority wishes to examine. Criticising the new regulations, Twitter had termed it a ‘potential threat’ to freedom of expression in India. On June 5, the Centre had sent a final notice to Twitter to comply with the new rules.