Twitter may face action if it does not comply with the government’s orders, the centre warned today, stressing that the social media giant “unilaterally unblocked” accounts and tweets – linked to an objectionable hashtag related to the farmers’ protest – despite its order.
On Monday, more than 250 accounts were blocked for tweeting, or retweeting, with the ‘farmer genocide’ hashtag, and making “fake, intimidatory and provocative tweets” in connection with the ongoing farmers’ protest. The use of hashtag is part of “motivated campaign 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,” the government has insisted.
The crackdown came nearly a week after the clashes between Delhi Police and farmers on Republic Day when the city witnessed unprecedented chaos after a massive tractor rally went rogue. Hours later, however, many of these accounts were unblocked.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Sunday had sought “emergency blocking of 257 URLs and 1 Hashtag under section 69 A of the Information Technology Act,” as per an official statement, which said the social media giant “unfortunately chose not to comply with the same till almost the time fixed for the meeting of a committee” the next day at 3 PM.