TWITTER BLOCKS 250 ACCOUNTS OVER ‘PROVOCATIVE’ POSTS ON FARMERS’ STIR

Hours after Twitter blocked around 250 accounts for making “fake, intimidatory and provocative tweets” in connection with the ongoing farmers’ agitation, the social media giant began unlocking some of them.

The IT ministry and law enforcement agencies had last week ordered Twitter to block these tweets and accounts under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.

A Twitter spokesperson said that many countries have laws that may apply to Tweets and/or Twitter account content. “In our continuing effort to make our services available to people everywhere, if we receive a properly scoped request from an authorised entity, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time,” the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.

Transparency is vital to protecting freedom of expression, so we have a notice policy for withheld content. Upon receipt of requests to withhold content, we will promptly notify the affected account holders (unless we are prohibited from doing so e.g. if we receive a court order under seal),” the company informed.

A Twitter spokesperson told IANS that the company has taken strong enforcement action to protect the conversation on the service from attempts to incite violence, abuse and threats that could trigger the risk of offline harm by blocking certain terms that violate our rules for trends.

The Delhi Police had warned that 308 Twitter handles have been generated to create confusion over the tractor rally proposed by protesting farmers on Republic Day.