Jammu and Kashmir government bars employees from airing political views on social media

Jammu: Airing political views on personal social media accounts could now land Jammu and Kashmir government employees in trouble.  The government barred its employees from using their social media accounts for any political activity by amending the conduct rules for them. The government has added a sub-rule in the Jammu and Kashmir Government Employees Conduct rules which states that no government employee shall engage in any criminal, dishonest, immoral or notoriously disgraceful conduct on social media which may be prejudicial to the government. “They shall also not use their personal social media accounts for any political activity or endorse the posts or tweets or blogs of any political figure,” the rule states. The employees shall also not use their accounts in a manner that could reasonably be construed to imply that the government endorses or sanctions their personal activities in any manner whatsoever, it said. The order said that the employees shall also not post inflammatory, extraneous messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response.