Govt to Twitter: Block accounts or face action

Twitter has conveyed that it was facing technical difficulties in blocking certain accounts which allegedly uploaded morphed and inflammatory images. But the government made it clear that the social networking site has to withdraw them or face punitive action.

Facing a directive to block the offending webpages immediately, Twitter conveyed to Department of Electronics and Information Technology that it was facing technical problems in withdrawing them and sought time to do it.

Government officials said Twitter’s reply could be a time buying ploy and they were in the process of telling the networking site to respond in clear terms whether they would be able to block those (around 28) webpages or not.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

[caption id=“attachment_428147” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption]

“We are not ruling out,” an official said when asked whether Twitter was buying time.

Hardening their stand, officials said the government wants the webpages to be blocked and it was Twitter’s responsibility how to do it.

It they do not do that, they will have to face action, they stressed.

Meanwhile, a Home Ministry spokesperson refuted reports that Twitter accounts of some people were blocked, saying security agencies wanted withdrawal of those webpages where offending images and videos were uploaded.

“Government is not blocking any individual Twitter account,” he said.

The government had already ordered blocking of 310 webpages where morphed and inflammatory contents were uploaded with the aim to incite Muslims in India leading to the mass exodus of people of the northeastern region from places in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

PTI