Ravi Shankar Prasad says Twitter denied access to his account for an hour, terms it gross violation of new IT rules

Twitter’s actions point out that they don’t seem to be the harbinger of free speech, stated IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Union Minister for Info Expertise Ravi Shankar Prasad in the present day claimed that he was made to attend for an hour to log into his Twitter account as he was denied entry to his deal with. Prasad shared the screenshot saying that his account was locked by Twitter on the bottom that there was a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of the USA. Notably, the IT minister’s declare comes amid ongoing variations between the Authorities of India and the microblogging web site over the brand new IT Guidelines, which Twitter is but to totally adjust to.

Prasad additionally stated that it doesn’t matter what any platform does, ‘they must abide by the brand new IT Guidelines absolutely and there shall be no compromise on that’.

“Associates! One thing extremely peculiar occurred in the present day. Twitter denied entry to my account for nearly an hour on the alleged floor that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to entry the account,” tweeted Prasad after he received the entry.

It’s obvious that my statements calling out the excessive handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, significantly sharing the clips of my interviews to TV channels and its highly effective affect, have clearly ruffled its feathers.

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021

Prasad stated that Twitter’s actions had been in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Info Expertise (Middleman Tips and Digital Media Ethics Code) Guidelines 2021 the place the corporate failed to offer him with any prior discover earlier than denying entry to his account. The IT Minister, who has been continually sharing video clips of his interviews towards Twitter on Twitter for the previous week, claimed that his statements calling out the excessive handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter have ‘clearly ruffled its feathers’.

“Additional, it’s now obvious as to why Twitter is refusing to adjust to the Middleman Tips as a result of if Twitter does comply, it will be unable to arbitrarily deny entry to a person’s account which doesn’t swimsuit their agenda. Moreover, up to now a number of years, no tv channel or any anchor has made any complaints about copyright infringements with regard to those information clips of my interviews shared on social media,” stated the minister.

Prasad stated that the motion by Twitter displays that it’s not a ‘harbinger of free speech’. “Twitter’s actions point out that they don’t seem to be the harbinger of free speech that they declare to be however are solely fascinated about operating their very own agenda, with the menace that if you don’t tow the road they draw, they are going to arbitrarily take away you from their platform,” he stated.

Prasad, who additionally owns a deal with on the Koo app which is alleged to be the Indian model of Twitter, posted these statements on Koo as nicely. Twitter has already misplaced the standing of social middleman in India after it didn’t adjust to the brand new Info Expertise Guidelines which got here into impact on Could 26.