IT rules wrangle: This is the latest in a prolonged tug-of-war between the central government and the microblogging site over compliance in the new IT rules

Union Minister For Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Twitter of deliberately blocking access to his handle over alleged violations of copyright laws—the latest incident to come in an escalating standoff between the microblogging site and the central government over the latter's controversial new IT rules.

In a series of tweets, Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Twitter of using the copyright law to retaliate against the central government’s insistence that the site must abide by the new IT laws.   He said he was briefly denied access to his account without any prior notice for almost an hour on the premise that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of USA, and said that his statements had “clearly ruffled” some feathers.

“Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account,” he said in the first of a series of tweets.

“Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account.”

“It is apparent that my statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly sharing the clips of my interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers.”

“Further, it is now apparent as to why Twitter is refusing to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines because if Twitter does comply, it would be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individual’s account which does not suit their agenda. Furthermore, in the past several years, no television channel or any anchor has made any complaints about copyright infringements with regard to these news clips of my interviews shared on social media.”

“Twitter’s actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not toe the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform,” he said, adding that there will be no compromise on following the controversial new rules.

“No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that,” he said.

The blocking of the IT Minister's Twitter account comes at a time when the US digital giant has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules.

The government has slammed Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country's new IT rules, which has led to the microblogging platform losing its intermediary status in India and becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.

Courtesy: The Tribune: 25th June, 2021