In fresh trouble for Twitter over the “misuse” of the platform regarding farmers’ protests, the Centre has served a new notice to the micro-blogging giant, asking it to block another 1,178 accounts, suspected to be linked to Khalistan sympathisers or backed by Pakistan.
This is in addition to the 257 handles the government had demanded should be blocked.
The fresh demand has been made by the IT ministry after it received an advisory from the home ministry and security agencies, government sources said.
“The accounts ordered blocked are of Khalistan sympathisers, or those backed by Pakistan and operating from foreign territories… Many of the accounts are also automated bots that were used for sharing and amplifying misinformation and provocative contents on farmers protests,” said a source.
The government is of the view that the activities conducted through the accounts that are sought to be blocked have the potential to “cause threat to public order in view of the ongoing farmers protests” in parts of the country. A spokesperson for Twitter in India did not answer a detailed questionnaire on the matter.
The fresh face-off comes at a time when the government has warned Twitter that its officials may land a jail term and the company slapped with a penalty over its refusal to comply with the orders. After bringing down the 257 accounts that were mentioned in the first list (related to farmer protests that had the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide), Twitter had swiftly unblocked most of them, angering officials at the IT ministry – headed by Ravi Shankar Prasad -- who sent a detailed notice to the company, asking them to comply with their orders.
“Twitter is an intermediary and they are obliged to obey directions of the government. Refusal to do so will invite penal action,” the IT ministry had said in the first notice sent on February 1, as per sources. The government said that the “motivated campaigns” and the hashtag being mentioned by the 257 accounts were being run to “abuse, inflame and create tension in society on unsubstantiated grounds.”
“Incitement to genocide is not freedom of speech; It is threat to law and order. Delhi had witnessed violence on Republic Day,” the government said, while reiterating its request to block the accounts. Twitter, however, had said that it had decided to unfreeze most of the accounts as the tweets sent out by them constituted “free speech and are newsworthy”.
The IT ministry clearly did not agree. “It may be noted that as per the relevant provisions of Indian law, the intermediary (Twitter in this case) is bound to comply with the order of the Designated Officer authorized by the Central Government, and in case of non-compliance, statutory consequences shall follow.”
