The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), in a notice issued late on Tuesday night, said Twitter had violated an order to block 257 accounts associated with the farmers’ agitation on the borders of Delhi.
Late afternoon on February 1, over 250 accounts and tweets on Twitter - typically associated with the farmers’ protests in India - started getting blocked en masse, in response to what Twitter described as a “properly scoped request from an authorized entity.” Many of these had used the hashtag “ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide".
While access to these accounts were reinstated a couple of hours later, the damage was done — that the social media giant had blocked access to hundreds of accounts at the behest of the government stoked fears of censorship.
Neither the government nor Twitter has offered an explanation as to how these accounts were earmarked to be blocked.
Section 69A of the IT Act gives the government power to block information if it is deemed to pose a threat to public order.
