Twitter on Wednesday said it has suspended over 500 accounts, and blocked access to several others within India as it partly acceded to a government order to curb spread of misinformation and inflammatory content around farmers' protests.
In a blogpost, Twitter said it has not blocked accounts consisting of "news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians" as doing so "would violate their fundamental right to free expression" guaranteed under the country's law.
Meanwhile, Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut slammed the microblogging website for "trying to control us". In her tweet, she tagged Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and wrote, "Tumko banaya kisne hai Chief Justice? At times you also gang up, then become a bully headmaster? Some times even the unelected member of the parliament. That’s not all at times you even pretend to be Prime Minister. Who are you? Bunch of druggies trying to control us @jack."
The 'Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi' actor added that Twitter's time is up and it is now time to shift to its new desi challenger Koo. "Your time is up @Twitter time to shift to #kooapp will inform everyone soon about my account details there. Absolutely thrilled to experience home grown #kooapp," she tweeted.
It is pertinent to mention that Twitter had recently taken down two of Ranaut's tweets over violation of their guidelines. In their statement, they have said that the action was taken as the tweets were in 'violation of Twitter rules'. The move of removing Kangana's tweets came a day after the actor went on a virtual rampage against pop star Rihanna, who showed her support for the farmers' protest.
Earlier, the microblogging website had temporarily suspended her account for a few hours after she tweeted on the controversial web series Tandav, starring Saif Ali Khan.