The Indian government has warned U.S social media firms after contention with Twitter. During the parliament meeting, Indian Information Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has warned the social media companies to abide by the country’s law, and the warning arises a day after the face-off between Twitter and the Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi’s administration over the content violation. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp were the social media platforms that faced criticization by the government for disobeying the Indian law. IT minister added that these social media platforms are welcome to operate in India only if they stick to the Indian rules. He also insisted them to follow the constitution of India as well as abide by the laws of India. Twitter was reprimanded by the Indian Government for not blocking over 1,100 accounts and posts, that spread misinformation regarding the farmer’s protests against the new agricultural bill. The social media giants were widely reproved for their action of defying government order. Twitter replied that the reason for not blocking certain content was that they believe the directives were not in line with the Indian laws. Some accounts were permanently suspended, while other’s access was geo-blocked by Twitter. But the posts of geo-blocked users can be read outside the country thus risking the government. This caused deep condemnation from the Indians tech ministry which even urged the politicians and their followers to join Koo, Twitter’s home-grown local rival. The government commented that, Since then, Twitter has restricted access to a bulk of accounts it was ordered to take down. But Twitter declined to comment as well as failed to clarify promptly whether the accounts were suspended or geo-blocked. Neither Twitter nor the Indian government publicized the entire list of blocked posts and accounts that were ordered to block. Those geo-blocked ones included a lawyer’s account too. The account of a member of parliament’s upper house was also temporarily blocked by Twitter after receiving a request from the government but was later unblocked. But from the restored account he again tweeted using the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide. This provoked the government even more that they decided to warn the social media firm over content regulation.
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