Farmers’ Protests: Twitter May Face Penal Action For Not Complying With Centre’s Order

The Central government has issued a new notice to microblogging site Twitter asking the social media platform to comply with its earlier order to suspend accounts that posted “false and provocative content” related to the farmers’ protest in the national capital, sources said.

This comes just days after Twitter withheld and then restored numerous accounts linked to various farm unions.

According to sources, “Twitter blocked some accounts under its 'Country Withheld Content' policy in response to a valid legal request from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.”

However, in subsequent meetings with government officials, Twitter is learnt to have conveyed that the accounts and tweets in question constitute “free speech” and are “newsworthy” and thereafter the tweets and accounts have been “unwithheld”.

Claiming that Twitter unilaterally unblocked accounts/tweets, going against the Centre’s order, the government issued a fresh notice in this regard on Tuesday.  

Twitter may face penal action for not complying with the government’s earlier order, sources said.

(With PTI inputs)