The twitter account of Canadian-Punjabi singer Jazzy B has been blocked for frequently tweeting in support of farmers, who are protesting the government’s agriculture laws.
Besides Jazzy B’s account, Twitter has blocked three other accounts that of hip-hop artist L-Fresh the Lion, youth organisation California Sikh Youth Alliance, and a user with the id @Tarande61695394. The accounts were geo-restricted after a legal demand from the Union government on Sunday.
According to the technology news website Techcrunch, all four accounts had posted content against the Centre’s farm laws and some had criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seven years of governance.
The company reviews an account under both the Twitter rules and the local law after it gets a valid legal request. If the content violates Twitter’s rules the content will be removed from the service. If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only, the social media platform said in a statement.
Also, the users are notified directly so that they know that the company has received a legal order pertaining to the account.We notify the user(s) by sending a message to the email address associated with the account(s), if available, the statement added.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that the social media platform, Twitter has blocked accounts at the request of the central government.Earlier too, 52 tweets were taken down on the Centre’s claim that they were spreading fake news. But the majority of these tweets were critical of its handling of the health crisis as the second wave in India led to states grappling with shortages of hospital beds, oxygen, medicines and vaccines.