While Twitter and the Indian government
face off over the issue of removing hate content / fake accounts, the
minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, Milind
Deora has found his Twitter account suspended. Users clicking on his
handle (@milinddeora) are being shown a message - “account suspended:
The profile you are trying to view has suspended”.
According to reports, minister's account
has gone for verification but then verification normally does not lead
to a temporary suspension. Wall Street Journal
in its report points out that the account suspension could be due to
hacking or a bonafide suspension either by Twitter or the government or
some technical reason.
Deora's last tweet before his account
was suspended was "Ironically, let me clarify on Twitter that there is
absolutely no intent of the government to curb freedom of social media
platforms."
Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien,
however, has played down the issue, saying there is no controversy in
the latest development. "No controversy... Milind Deora's #twitter
account has been sent for 'verification'...should be up again soon I
hear," O'Brien said.
Deora's account suspension comes at a time when the Indian government has asked the micro blogging website to take down various Twitter accounts and sought cooperation in removing few accounts posing as Prime Minister's Office.
According to reports, Milind Deora has
been an active Twitter user and has thousands of followers. The minister
recently in a tweet said Twitter should remove certain accounts and
content in the wake of Assam riots. He also clarified that the
government was not trying to censor the Internet but only attempting to
stem circulation of rumours of misinformation among the common public.
Source: Hindustan Times
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