Amit Shah
Members of a parliamentary committee on Thursday raised the issue of social networking site Twitter temporarily locking the account of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in November last year as well as misrepresentation of the Indian map by the micro-blogging site, sources said.
The parliamentary standing committee on information technology on Thursday interacted separately with representatives of Facebook, Twitter and ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on the issue of safeguarding citizens’ rights, preventing misuse of social news media platforms and women security in the digital space.
Sources said that the Twitter executives were questioned why the Home Minister’s account was blocked and who gave them the right to do so. The Twitter officials explained that they had to block the account temporarily as there was a copyright issue regarding a picture posted.
When Shah’s account was blocked, Twitter had explained it as an “inadvertent error” under its copyright policies. “This decision was reversed immediately and the account is fully functional,” a Twitter spokesperson had said.
Citing the example of Twitter blocking the account of Donald Trump, then US President, social media representatives said that they have strong rules regarding content and would remove content when necessary to ensure it does not incite violence.
In India, Facebook had landed in controversy in September after Wall Street Journal reported that it had overlooked hate speech posted by leaders of the ruling BJP and right wing voices. The US publication also reported that Facebook’s then India policy chief Ankhi Das had advised against action, saying punishing violations by BJP workers “would damage the company’s business prospects in the country”.
Facebook had defended Ankhi Das, saying policies on hate speech are “not made unilaterally by any one person”.
Facebook also explained its policy on the new privacy laws of WhatsApp, which has caused concern in India.
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