Microblogging social network Twitter blocked several accounts on Monday. The blocked accounts belonged to those who are associated with farmers’ protests like farmers, farmers’ leaders, actors and many others. The accounts were withheld on ‘legal request’ but were restored by 9pm on Monday itself.
The withheld accounts included of newsmagazine Caravan, tribal leader Hansraj Meena, actor Sushant Singh and Kisan Ekta Morcha (the IT cell of Samyukt Kisan Morcha) and many more. These all were associated with farmers’ protests.
As per the sources the Ministry of Electronics and Information (MEITY) had asked the microblogging network to block either tweets or accounts which were using the hashtag of “fake, intimidatory and provocative” under section 69A of the IT Act. Total 250 tweets were blocked.
The sources also said that the Delhi cyber cell flagged for around 250 accounts. A police officer from cyber cell said, “The flagged accounts were peddling fake news, causing disharmony, disrupting public peace and posting old content without clarifications from police.” The authorities will keep an eye on such activities on social media he added.
The Union Home ministry and law enforcement agencies requested the MEITY to get the tweets or accounts suspended. The ministries and agencies did this to “prevent any escalation of the law and order in view of the ongoing protests”.
According to Twitter, the company had received a valid legal request from MEITY to suspend some accounts. But it held other meetings with government officials and conveyed that the accounts and tweets in question constitute free speech and are newsworthy. The company then “unwithheld” the accounts to protect public conversation.
Other withheld accounts included those of CPM politician Mohd Salim, farm organisation BKU Ekta Ugrahan and Tractor2Twitter (operated by some professionals led by Sydney-returned IT professional Bhavjit Singh). “It shows Twitter is acting on the directions of the central government to stop the flow of information from going to the outer world. It seems the government is planning a big crackdown as suspension of such a large number of Twitter accounts points towards it,” told IT professional Bhavjit Singh.
Many politicians and activists had criticised Twitter for its whimsical decision. those included RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, TMC’s Derek O’Brien and Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.
Apart from politicians and activists many others like Internet Freedom Foundation and Digital rights advocacy group also criticised the opaqueness of section 69A, which allows the government to prevent social media companies from disclosing any information about why an account is suspended.
The Internet Freedom Foundation tweeted, “(Section 69A) continues to enable secret censorship by the executive branch without any independent judicial oversight.
But the twitter told that it notifies the affected account holders of its decision to withhold accounts “unless we are prohibited from doing so, example, if we receive a court order under seal”.
