Twitter locks IT minister RS Prasad’s account for allegedly violating US laws
Ten News Network
Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday said that Twitter denied access to his account for almost an hour over alleged violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and asserted that its actions were in gross violation of the Information Technology Rules 2021.
In a series of posts on Koo, an Indian microblogging platform, the minister slammed Twitter and said its actions indicate that “they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be” and are “only interested in running their own agenda”.
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.
“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,” Prasad said.
“Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the 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 added.
Prasad, who is also Law Minister, said it is apparent that his statements “calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly sharing the clips of interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers.”
“Twitter’s actions indicate that they are 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.
Prasad, who is also Communications Minister, said it is now apparent as to why Twitter is refusing to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines because if Twitter does comply, “it would be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individual’s account which does not suit their agenda”.
