Amidst the tussle between Twitter and the Union Government over the new IT rules, a new update has come out. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Electronics and IT Minister was recently denied access to his Twitter account.
Minister Calls Twitter’s Move “Gross Violation”
As per the latest reports, Ravi Shankar Prasad was recently denied access to his Twitter account for almost an hour. Following this, he took to India-made micro-blogging platform Koo, to express his concerns. He said that the move by Twitter was a “gross violation of the IT guidelines”.
In the statement, he said that Twitter’s action were a gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology ((Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. He said that he didn’t receive any prior information regarding the same.”
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Prasand has been at the forefront of the government’s drive to bring in stricter regulations for the social media platforms in India. He further added, that it is clear that his statements for calling out the ”high handedness and arbitrary actions” of Twitter along with the shared interview TV clips have ruffled Twitter’s feathers.
Minister Accuses Twitter Of Not Being A Supporter of Free Speech
As the minister continued to express his opinions on Koo regarding Twitter’s move, he said that it was now clear to him as to why Twitter had refused to comply with the IT Rules 2021. It was because if they do so, they won’t be able to deny anyone access to suit their agenda.
He also accused Twitter of not supporting free speech on their channel as they claim to be. But are instead running their own agenda. He said that if someone does not comply with their ideologies, they would remove you from the platform.
“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 added.