Substance Abuse: No threat to shut Twitter during farmers’ stir: Government | India News

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday denied having threatened to “shut down Twitter” or authorised raids at the homes of Twitter executives for their coverage of the farmers’ agitat ion in 2021. However, it said sections of the Information Technology Act were invoked to direct the microblogging site to block 3750 Twitter URLs between August 2020 and December 2021, the period during which the farmers’ agitation was at its peak.

The government, however, added that Twitter was served an additional notice on June 27, 2022, warning it of “significant con sequences” under the IT Act after it failed to block 167 of the 3750 URLs it was asked to takedown.
“Therefore, the government issued notice to Twitter on June 27, 2022, givingthem opportunity to comply fully, failing which they would have had to face significant consequences as mentioned in the IT Act, 2000. Subsequent to this notice, Twitter complied with all the blocking directions issued under section 69A of IT Act, 2000,” IT minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar told Parliament in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.

In June, Twitter co-founder and form er CEO JackDorsey had stirred a controversy by claiming in an interview that India had ordered Twitter to remove posts and accounts, often accompanying these with threats of legal repercussions. Dorsey had also claimed that orders from the Indian government “manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would raid the homes of your employees’, and ‘we will shut down your offices if you don’t follow suit’. ” Delhi Police Special Cell had conducted raids at the Delhi and Gurgaon offices of Twitter in May, 2021.
Chandrashekhar was responding to a question by RLD MP Jayant Chaudhary on the number of requests the government made to Twitter, either to remove content or seeking user account data. He also denied requesting for user account data from any platform.