APThe ministry of electronics and IT has called Twitter's action of releasing a blogpost before its scheduled meeting with the secretary, MEITY Ajay Prakash Sawhney "unusual". It will also take a fresh call on whether to go ahead with the meeting.
"Upon the request of Twitter seeking a meeting with the government, the Secretary IT was to engage with senior management of Twitter. In this light a blog post published prior to this engagement is unusual. Govt. will share its response soon," MEITY said in a statement on home-grown micro-blogging site Koo.
Twitter had sought a meeting with the union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad but the minister had declined the meeting and Sawhney was supposed to have the discussions with Twitter.
Twitter posted a blog post on Wednesday morning saying that it has permanently suspended more than 500 accounts for violations of Twitter’s rules but it has not taken "any action" on accounts of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians as that would violate “fundamental right to free expression under Indian law.”
Twitter also said that it believes that the "actions it has been directed to" take are not "consistent with Indian law".
Twitter has not blocked the aforementioned accounts, "keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression", it said.
The microblogging platform has "withheld a portion of the accounts identified in the blocking orders" within India only, the company said listing the actions taken since January 26. It has informed the ministry of electronics and IT (MEITY) of the enforcement actions today. It added it is “actively exploring options under Indian law — both for Twitter and for the accounts that have been impacted.”
This comes after San-Francisco headquartered company has been on the receiving end from the government over non-compliance of orders to block around 1,400 Twitter handles allegedly fanning farmer protests.
ET reported on Tuesday that the government was considering legal action including filing an FIR under Section 69A (3) of the Information Technology Act or suspending the platform under Section 69A for failing to act on its orders issued under the grounds of national security and public order.
"Upon the request of Twitter seeking a meeting with the government, the Secretary IT was to engage with senior management of Twitter. In this light a blog post published prior to this engagement is unusual. Govt. will share its response soon," MEITY said in a statement on home-grown micro-blogging site Koo.
Twitter had sought a meeting with the union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad but the minister had declined the meeting and Sawhney was supposed to have the discussions with Twitter.
Twitter posted a blog post on Wednesday morning saying that it has permanently suspended more than 500 accounts for violations of Twitter’s rules but it has not taken "any action" on accounts of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians as that would violate “fundamental right to free expression under Indian law.”
Twitter also said that it believes that the "actions it has been directed to" take are not "consistent with Indian law".
Twitter has not blocked the aforementioned accounts, "keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression", it said.
The microblogging platform has "withheld a portion of the accounts identified in the blocking orders" within India only, the company said listing the actions taken since January 26. It has informed the ministry of electronics and IT (MEITY) of the enforcement actions today. It added it is “actively exploring options under Indian law — both for Twitter and for the accounts that have been impacted.”
This comes after San-Francisco headquartered company has been on the receiving end from the government over non-compliance of orders to block around 1,400 Twitter handles allegedly fanning farmer protests.
ET reported on Tuesday that the government was considering legal action including filing an FIR under Section 69A (3) of the Information Technology Act or suspending the platform under Section 69A for failing to act on its orders issued under the grounds of national security and public order.
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7 Comments on this Story
 | Malay Deb20 minutes ago From about 2011 until recently BJP and its cohorts had almost a monopoly in propaganda on this very platform twitter as well as in facebook and whatsapp against UPA Govt, opposition parties, student and other social activists, academics, public intellectuals and what not. Now that they're getting paid by the same coin, they are rattled. You started it BJP, now deal with it. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. |
| sandeepan pahari49 minutes ago it's not a secret that Twitter is 100% left leaning platform. Even Jack Dorsey has admitted it multiple times on various fora that Twitter has a bias towards the left. |
 | Ankur Badhwar54 minutes ago modi has lost mind. modi is a coward and now its out open in world to see. Twitter has been the platform bjp used for its proppganda with the help of godi media . Now they are perplexed with the support farmers movement is getting. |