After the account was blocked on Twitter, Ravi Shankar Prasad posted on Koo, “Twitter blocked access to my account for about an hour.”
New Delhi| Global micro-blogging giant Twitter, on Friday, blocked the handle of IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for an hour. Twitter blocked the IT Minister’s account for “violating America’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act”. However, Twitter later restored the handle of Ravi Shankar Prasad, albeit with a warning.
Ravi Shankar Prasad informed about this through Twitter’s rival Koo. He then also shared the same information on Twitter.
Law Minister Informed About The Incident on Koo
After the account was blocked on Twitter, Ravi Shankar Prasad posted on Koo. He wrote, “Friends! A very strange incident happened today. Twitter blocked access to my account for about an hour. It was told that there has been an alleged infringement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of America. Later they gave me permission to access the account.” He added that Twitter’s action is in violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. This relates to notifying the user before blocking access to their accounts.
“It is clear that my statements on Twitter’s arbitrariness, especially sharing clips of my interviews on TV channels, have stunned Twitter. Now it is also clear why Twitter is refusing to follow the Intermediary Guidelines because if Twitter follows it, it will not be able to arbitrarily deny access to anyone’s account and it is not according to their agenda,” He added further.
Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account. pic.twitter.com/WspPmor9Su
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021
IT Minister also said that no TV channel or anchor has complained about copyright infringement regarding my interview clip shared on social media in the last several years.
“Twitter’s move indicates that they are not in favour of free speech, which they claim. They are only interested in running their agenda. With the threat that if you don’t follow their drawn line, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform,” Prasad wrote on Koo.
He, however, warned that No matter the platform, they have to fully comply with the new IT rules and there will be no compromise on the same.
What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the US?
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a US copyright act. The law was enacted by then US President Bill Clinton in October 1998. Clinton had said that the purpose of making this law is to protect any content from theft and to help take action against the accused if it is stolen. Under this, all types of digital products like audio, video, text, content come.
Most blog writers or content creators use this law to protect their content. If any person copies someone’s content without permission, then he can complain under DMCA.
Fresh Trouble In Twitter-Govt Conflict?
This action of the social media company on the IT Minister has come at a time when the central government and Twitter are at loggerheads regarding the new IT rules. Representatives of Twitter were also called in before the Parliamentary Committee attached to the IT Ministry last week. The committee asked the company officials whether they follow the law of the land?
On this, the representatives of Twitter said – “We follow our policy, which is according to the law of the country.” However, objecting to this argument, the committee said in a stern tone that the law of the country is the supreme and not the company’s policy.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
